In the school classroom, the teacher’s writ undoubtedly ran large. The authority that he or she wielded over the motley crew of students, aligned linearly on the benches, was complete when chalk went screeching on the big writing surface, the blackboard. But amid the students’ dislike for authority, an element of awe among them was unmissable as the teacher wielded artistry on the blackboard — curling the alphabets in varied degrees of thickness, rounding circles perfectly and stubbing the chalk with an air of finality while writing a mere full stop.
Now, the blackboard that the teacher continues to monopolise is of a more refined quality, usually of porcelain-enamelled steel, which helps the chalk glide noiselessly on the surface. Some classrooms also have blackboards that use a dark paint surface. But the blackboards of old were of slate material, chunks of stone sliced into big rectangular slabs and polished.
A smaller version of the blackboard, and its predecessor actually, was the book-sized stone slate fitted with a wooden frame -- a must-have in the school bags of primary students. Education experts believe writing on a slate helped a child develop motor skills, thanks to the continuous demand on eye-hand coordination. The slate also helped with memorization, because of the ease with which work done on it could be erased. Truly, wiping the slate clean left no record.
Once available even with local grocers, the stone slate — ‘dagdi pati’ as it used to be known — has disappeared from the market. The stationery shops at
Appa Balwant Chowk and
Shivaji Market say they stopped stocking them more than a decade ago. These shops would then even sell slates bunched together with a spiral metal wire, resembling the pages of a book.
Slates are still in use in the primary sections of some civic-run schools in the city, but they are of the cardboard or metal variety. The authorities say the use of slates was high in the past because paper and ink were costly.
Prashant Salvi, an octogenarian, recalls spending from his pocket to buy new stone slates for his students at the municipal school where he taught. “The slates were brittle and would shatter into pieces when they fell. Most of my students were from poor backgrounds and found it difficult to spend even Rs 10 for a new slate,” he says. Today, Salvi himself doesn’t have a stone slate to show as a souvenir. He has done the rounds of the stationers in the city often but cannot find one.
Yogendra Bangar, a teacher from
Phangane village near Thane, makes do with metal slates at his school which is run exclusively for uneducated women, all aged above 50. The school provides the women pink saris as uniforms, school bags, slates, chalks and slate pencils. Bangar, though, is not too pleased with the metal slates and is on the lookout for bulk supply of the stone version.
Prafulla Bhishnurkar from Akurdi has a few dozen stone slates but doesn’t write on them. A teacher with a school for the mentally-challenged, he instead carves images on his slates. Different colours emerge as he scrapes a layer or two from the surface of the stone. His offbeat art fetches him decent returns, with a slate bearing a well-carved image selling for up to Rs 5,000.
Bhishnurkar, who has around 10 fresh stone slates left with him now, would be happy to know that there are still a few manufacturers in the country who make the product. One of them is
Shyamaraj Global Commerce from
Karnataka, whose proprietor, Rajendra Halemane, admits that demand is near-negligible and that he sells just around 1,000 stone slates each year. The slates are certainly not the mainstay of his business, but he says he finds personal satisfaction in keeping alive something as traditional as this product.
