Hindu Daily
As the curtain rose on the fifth edition of the Malabar Crafts Mela at Kottakkunnu here on Friday evening, a local artisan from Valiyora, near Vengara in the district, stole the hearts of many with his curios made out of coconuts.
Paramban Ittaman's stall set up at the table-top tourist hill is attracting a lot of visitors. The figures of national and State political leaders Mr. Ittaman carved in coconut are the main attractions among his curios.
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He has carved out of coconuts legendary leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and E.M.S. Namboothiripad; Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Leader of the Opposition V.S. Achuthanandan, the former Chief Minister K. Karunakaran, and K. Muraleedharan, MLA, were carved during the last three years. The statuettes of renaissance icon Sree Narayana Guru, U.S. President Barak Obama, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, legendary warrior Pazhassi Raja, and father of Malayalam language Thunjath Ezhuthachan are his other prominent subjects.
The leaders apart, Mr. Ittaman has many other items made out of coconuts and coconut products. He does not spare anything that a coconut tree yields. Other than the colours he uses to embellish the products, no foreign element can be found on his creations.
He turned to creating human figures after having won fame as a coconut artist.
Museum of curios
He has a unique museum of coconut curios at home. It houses cocks, cranes, crows, owls, kites, pheasants, parrots, penguins, peacocks, sparrows, pigeons, ducks, boats, ships, lamps, flowers, caps, slippers, fishing rods, spiders, beetles, beehive, papaya, cup-and-saucer — all of them created using various parts of the coconut tree. Mr. Ittaman does not use any tool other than a sickle for his craft.
“I don't discard any part of the coconut, be it the shell, husk, palm leaves or any other part,” he says.
Mr. Ittaman was forced to retire from his vocation as a coconut-tree climber a few years ago after a fall that broke his spine. Then he turned to making curios. Mr. Ittaman spends most of his evenings on coconut carving now and has become a regular face in the craft fairs in the district.
