Long before ‘passwords’ and ‘barcodes’ entered the lexicon, lock-making was a flourishing industry made famous by oustanding mechanisms handcrafted in a cluster of villages around Dindigul. Locks have always been synonymous with Aligarh and Dindigul, but the southern town enjoys a particularly unique reputation for the sheer variety of locks it made.
Each type of lock, made by a skilled artisan from scrap metal steel or brass, came with a unique code. The locksmith’s mission was to think ahead of thieves. Only one key was supplied with a lock. If the original was lost, the buyer had to travel all the way to Dindigul for a duplicate of it. “Even now, people come to get duplicate keys for 200-year-old locks,” says K. Muthuveeran of the Nallampatti village, who has been making locks for the last 43 years.
Now, though, locks can be bought across-the-counter with two or three keys.
A range of hand-made Dindigul locks.
It was the port town of Thoothukudi in southern Tamil Nadu that was famous in the State for its lockstill Sankaralinga Asari of Dindigul married the daughter of a locksmith there. He brought the art of lock-making to his drought-struck town and became so successful at popularising the craft that people were known to say at the time: Sekkukku kooda maattai kodukkalam (you can even offer your cow to work in an oil mill) aanaal Dindigul kaaranukku penn kodukka koodaathu (but do not get your daughter married to a man from Dindigul). The timeline for the legend of Sankaralinga Asari is not precisely known but locksmiths here believe that the art they practise is more than a century old.
Ingenious models
Later day locksmiths were so ingenious that they were able to conjure up models with names like kolaikaaran poottu (killer lock) and saavipudi poottu (a lock that will not accept a wrong key). The speciality of the kolaikaaran poottu was a sharp knife would come out to injure the fingers if a wrong key was inserted. Such a lock was used mainly in safety lockers, cash boxes and almirahs. In the case of the saavipudi poottu , the wrong key would get jammed and the lock would be rendered useless. But these locks can now be found only in old mansions of the Chettinad region, or in museums.
Workers engaged in lock manufacturing at Dindigul Co-Operative Lock Society in Dindigul.
There are also ‘trick locks’ and ‘bell locks’ that bear the Dindigul stamp. ‘Trick locks’ use a unique combination of the key’s position and the number of keys — a bell embedded in the lock will ring when a key is inserted to lock or unlock it.
Apart from the ‘special locks’, the most famous of Dindigul’s locks are the thotti poottu (cradle lock) and maanga poottu (mango lock), which is still available several sizes.
P. Gurusamy, who has a lock-making unit on the Dindigul Bypass Road, makes locks for bank lockers. “These locks can be opened only with a combination of six keys and the locker will not open if a wrong sequence of keys is used,” says the 66-year-old craftsman, who has been in the trade for the past 55 years. He adds, “We can make any lock by just looking at it.”
Trust was the industry’s hallmark. Even now, all temples and many government offices in Tamil Nadu use the Dindigul lock alongside surveillance cameras and burglar alarms.
A worker packages locks for sale at the Dindigul Co-Operative Lock Society in Dindigul.
Lock-making spread around Dindigul in areas like Nallampatti, Paraipatti, Perumalkovilpatti, Kammalapatti and Nagal Nagar. S. Nagarajan, a retired teacher, recalls days when there were around 250 lock-making units in Nallampatti. “I worked in a lock-making unit for a few years after undergoing training in teaching. Dindigul locks were in good demand then. Today, there are seven units and only a couple of them employ two or more workers,” he says.
“Breaking a lock was rare when Dindigul locks were used. Thieves used to break the walls instead of locks to gain entry into a house. Now, people have to install surveillance cameras, besides improvised locks,” says S. Duraisamy of Nallampatti, who works under a thatched roof that lets in rain and sunshine, perhaps symoblic of the state of Dindigul’s lock industry.
The reasons for the decline in the lock-making tradition of the region are many — the refusal of artisans to adopt modern technology; the absence of documentation, research and development; an unorganised workforce paid poor wages with the consequent disinterest amongyounger workers to learn the craft; the invasion of cheaper and lightweight locks made by machines, especially from China; and the higher cost of handcrafted locks.
A worker is engaged in lock manufacturing at a workshop at Nallampatti near Dindigul.
The imposition of 18% Goods and Services Tax (GST) has also hiked the price of Dindigul locks. A box lock, which was selling at ₹4,500 before costs ₹5,400 now; the mango lock costs ₹418 instead of the previous ₹350. It’s also easier to get Chinese locks with three keys at half the price.
The enterprises here are concentrated in the tiny and small-scale sector. An expert in making the mango lock, N. Pichai (63), says that a majority of the locksmiths who remain in Dindigul make levers and only assemble them in readymade boxes, which are nickel coated and sold for ‘fancy prices’.
A huge blow
“It is a buyers' market for the Dindigul lock. Traders refuse to revise prices for us. There used to be an annual price revision but the prices have remained static in the last five years,” Mr. Pichai says. The 2009 strike for wage revision was a huge blow to the industry.
Some efforts to infuse infuse life into the industry are being attempted.The Dindigul Lock Workers’ Industrial Cooperative Society, established in 1959, was renamed the Dindigul Lock, Hardware and Steel Furniture Workers' Industrial Cooperative Society (DICO) in 2013. DICO has made an application for the Geographical Indication (GI) tag for Dindigul locks, which is being processed by the GI Registry.The society, which was formed with 106 workers, has only 13 members in it today, and most of them are past the age of 55.
DICO also plans to set up an assembly line to speed up production without compromising on traditional techniques. “We will modernise and simplify the lock-making process to attract youngsters,” says N. Deivendran, DICO’s president.
Meanwhile, the last generation of Dindigul’s lock makers seem to be toiling their way into history. R. S. Gani of Nagal Nagar is a second generation craftsman, who makes four locks a day by working from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. He learnt the craft from his father, who migrated to Nagal Nagar from the Virudhunagar region, driven by drought.
His children have moved on to greener pastures though. “A lock is not a perishable commodity, sothere is no repeat sale,” he points out. “Handmade locks are costly and bought only by those who realise their value.”
Mr. Gani earns ₹300 to ₹350 a day but feels this is not adequate. He says, “Wages are better in the construction industry but I cannot move out of lock-making.”
