Why it happens: all of these need to be strong and to hold an edge or a shape. Iron is hard and tough, so a khurpi can cut into soil day after day without bending out of shape, and a tawa can be heated on the fire again and again without cracking.
Q2.
Anandi: What materials are they made of?
Answer
Three materials are used in the ironsmith's workshop, each for a different reason.
Iron — the metal from which the item itself is made. It is hard, strong and can be beaten into shape.
Wood — used to prepare the handles wherever required, because wood is a poor conductor of heat and does not burn the hand.
Coal — burnt in the furnace to heat the iron until it is red hot and soft enough to be hammered.
Did you know? Coal is a non-metal (mostly carbon). So even a workshop that is all about a metal cannot run without a non-metal.
Q3.
Anandi is amazed and asks, “Why are you beating it?”
Answer
Sudarshan uncle answers: “I am beating it to shape it into an axe.”
He first heats the iron block in the coal furnace until it becomes red hot. Hot iron is much softer than cold iron, so each blow of the hammer spreads and bends the metal a little instead of merely bouncing off it. Blow after blow, the shapeless block becomes the flat, wedge-shaped blade of a kulhadi.
Why it happens: iron is malleable — it can be beaten into a new shape without breaking. Heating makes it far more malleable. A piece of coal treated the same way would simply shatter.
Q4.
Anandi: Wow, a piece of iron can be beaten into a flat shape! Can we do this with other metals as well?
Answer
Yes — most metals can be beaten flat. This is exactly the question Activity 4.1 goes on to test.
Copper, aluminium, iron → flatten on hammering → malleable
Coal, sulfur → break into pieces → brittle
Wood → neither flattens nor breaks → neither malleable nor brittle Gold and silver are the most malleable metals of all.
Check it yourself: look at the silver vark on a barfi. That sheet is a metal beaten so thin that it tears at a touch — proof of how far a metal will spread under a hammer.