Bought a pulley, nylon rope and an S for doing some lat and deltoid type exercise at home. Bought them from Chandni where Monisha and I went this morning, basically to buy two Aron helmets (Rs 600 each). The pulley (a very basic one) cost Rs 170 and the S Rs 10. The 10 meter nylon rope came in for Rs 80. It's the thinner variety. I thought the thicker variety might be difficult to tie to the weights. But now after installing the machine, looks like it's too thin for the weight. I am using 10 kg for pulling up. Might go up to 15 kg. It's too thin for a decent grip. Let me see. I might go for a thicker rope or a wooden/cane rule to be tied at the other end or perhaps both.
I remembered my father once again. He would've been happy today. We had a very famous large well in our house in Deoghar where the entire neighbourhood used to come for their water in summer when the other wells in Belabagan used to run dry - ours never ran out of water as it had several perennial springs inside. It had a very elaborate grille (according to Baba his father had bought them off an auction from Hazaribagh jail) on top but it did not have the pulley system for pulling out water. During my grand father's time it had a latha system to fill up the cistern for irrigating the field around. A latha is a large bamboo with a rope attached to one end with a bucket hanging from it and the other end is on a Y kind of piece of wood fixed to the field. That end has a big weight. You pull the rope down and guide the bucket into the water and then let it go free. It rises with the load at the other end of the bamboo. A very ancient kind of system, I am sure. I don't think these systems are practised anywhere in India any more.
Our caretaker Tilua used to complaint a lot that pulling water out of the well without a pulley was a hell of a problem. Basically he used to stand on the grille on top and pull water out with a bucket attached to a rope. To use a pulley we would need to make a concrete structure over the well. Two pillars on the sides and a concrete slab connecting them over the top from where the pulley would hang.
Baba used to often take quotes from some local masons and they would spend hours over various details like how many bricks and how much cement would be needed, what diameter of steel rods to use etc. Finally the pillars would never get erected for paucity of funds.
Today that pulley finally got purchased. Albeit for a different purpose altogether. But it's a similar pulley nevertheless that should have hung over our big well in Deoghar. All that is part of my memories only.
From Chandni I also bought for my tool collection a small hammer for Rs 70. It's not a regular requirement item but when you need it you cannot make do with something else, particularly on cycles or other delicate items.
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