When he was superannuated in 2009, CR Sainathan stepped out of a room tidy as a pin, and walked into another — an atelier where the world’s biggest pin would be irretrievably lost if dropped.
Sainathan is not the archetypical “workman”. He is 74 years old, operates two electronic saws, both as massive as a mastiff, in a “workspace” wrested from what was born a bedroom, in his flat at Venkatachala Chetty Street in Triplicane.
These saws — Ryobi bandsaw and a DeWalt fretsaw, both bought in the United States five years ago — are his trusted aides in a fretsaw-based art hobby, being practised assiduously since retirement.
The “work” is not even a distant relative to what he had had for a career, one he capped off in style, retiring as head of the department at the autombile section of a polytechnic.
Driven by a childhood passion for fretwork, Sainathan is a man possessed by the hobby, as illustrated by every nook and cranny of his house.
Plywood, MDF boards and sunmica (for that smooth laminate finish) are the primary materials used in his fretsaw artworks. Notable works include a collection of miniatures that simulate furniture in different settings. There is office furniture, which includes a revolving chair to which he has imparted the swivel movement. A beach recliner. An elongated “U” of a conference table. A variety of photo holders, some of them carved to denote numbers marking a milestone — usually, a milestone birthday — and handy props (mobile phone holders among them) are displayed in the drawing room. There are also purely decorative tchotchkes. These pieces are regularly cleared out of Sainathans’ home, being transferred to the living rooms of friends and extended family members as gifts to mark special occasions.
When wood items bought off the shelves do not go into his artworks, pretty much everything else does. Besides the dexterity with the saws, Sainathan has mastered the art of putting discarded material to a combination of artistic and utilitarian purposes, as illustrated by a toothbrush-toothpaste holder, one made with discarded PVC pipes, one-inch clips for PVC pipes and a cooker gasket. Discarded metal pipes make the frame of a mirror. He “fret-sawed” a wall-mounted wooden showcase and a key-holding cabinet into existence. With such useful creations, Sainathan functions as something of a ready handyman inside his house, a factor that should automatically draw unsparing support from his wife, CS Manjula. The assistance from Manjula includes managing a YouTube channel where Sainathan has parked all his fretsaw artworks. Sainathan has dedicated the channel to Anandan, his crafts teacher at school. His father being in the police force, his family had had to relocate every three years. “That is how I ended up at St. Xavier’s in Palayamkottai for two years. While in Class VII, I started focussing on fretsaw art in a big way. Two months ago, I wrote to the current principal of the school, sharing details of my hobby, as a token of gratitude for how the institution helped me develop it. Reportedly, the letter was displayed on the notice board,” discloses Sainathan.
The hearth has also played an equally significant role in honing Sainathan’s skill with fretsaws. His father, C Ramachandran, who was deputy superintendent of police when he died in harness due to a heart ailment, was a fretwork hobbyist and the interest had rubbed off on the son. In memory of his father and his craft, Sainathan has preserved a manual fretsaw he would use, as also a decorative vase he had designed with this tool.
The Sainathans have one child, CS Barath, who is domiciled in the United States where he works in the IT industry. It was with his his son’s help that Sainathan bought the bandsaw and fretsaw from the US.
