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The Kinta Kellas Estate House - Part 2
Here we look at some of the fittings in the house, old and new.
On the top left is the original Punkah. This device, operated by a servant rhythmically pulling a cord from the adjacent room. In the British Army he would have been known as the "Punkah Wallah". Wikipedia describes the Punkah viz:
"A punkah is a type of fan used since the early 500 B.C.. The word pankha originated from pankh, the wings of a bird which produce a draft when flapped.
In the colonial age, the word came to be used in a special sense by Anglo-Indians in British India for a large swinging fan, fixed to the ceiling, and pulled by a coolie, called the punkawallah, during the hot weather. The date of this invention is not known, but it was familiar to the Arabs as early as the 8th century. It was not commonly used in India before the end of the 18th century.
The electric fan largely supplanted it in barracks and other large buildings at the beginning of the 20th century."
One can imagine William Kellie Smith sitting at the table in the second picture (from the famous Singapore store Robinson's) being kept cool as he ate his evening meal. These are both examples of a Colonial lifestyle.
Of course the electric fan would have been fitted later and definitely after 1927 when the manufacturing company Cromptom-Parkinson of Chelsford, UK was founded. Their name is on the bottom of the fan as shown.
Finally there is a general view of this room showing the Punkah and table, now displaced.