Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
The Things people keep
Name Gunathilak
Collection Double-wick lamps
Gunathilak has an insatiable passion for antiques. To his family’s chagrin, he keeps picking up things long in disuse.
With his cast-iron collectibles, he was featured in this column a year ago. Subsequently, he set his mind to collecting double-wick lamps. He has over fifty of them.
Ornamental now, these lamps once lit up houses. Most of them had been made before electricity became widespread in the Western world, and, therefore, have great antique value.
Gunathilak’s collection straddles two continents. “A majority of the lamps are from the United Kingdom. There are American lamps too.”
The odd ones come from other countries, including Germany. As he began to collect these double wicks, Gunathilak was struck by the similarities between lamps made in different parts of the Western world.
Burners, founts, wicks and chimneys were almost always interchangeable. Even in lamps with varying stem heights or shade sizes, the basic fitment measurements were same.
Having noticed a common thread running through these double wicks, Gunathilak began to stock individual items like burners and chimneys. “I know I can try to use them in lamps where these parts are missing.”
A set of hanging double wicks forms a separate section in this collection. These lamps, which hang from the wooden rafters of Gunathilak’s 100-year-old bungalow (his maternal grandfather K.T. Nath bought it 80 years ago), can be pulled down and lighted. Gunathilak says such lamps are popular in Goa.
Gunathilak says the technology underlying these lamps deserves credit. To support his point, he shows me how one lamp uses a ‘switch’ concept to put out the flame.
He explains how the lamps vary from one another. There are lamps whose wicks are manipulated with two controls. Then, there are lamps with two controls that come in one unit.
He explains why some lamps can double as reading lamps. Thanks to an appliance that diffuses the flame, he relies on a Sherwood lamp (called a Punkah Burner) to take him through a night of reading.
( freddie@thehindu.co.in)
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
|
