Welcome to PaNKaWaLLa

There isan interesting story of how the "PaNKa" (punkha), the predecessor of the electric fan came to be invented. To overcome the stifling heat of Bengal, once a Eurasian clerk in Fort William at Calcutta tied his desk to his roof, attached a string to it and thrust it into the hands of his servant with a command to pull.

When the British conquered Myanmar and ruled the country, they introduced ceiling fans which they brought from India. It was a large fan made of cloth, fastened to a long rod and attached to the ceiling. The rod tied to a rope was swung by and office boy. This contraption having originated in India is called "PaNKa" (punkha) (fan) and is pulled by a "PaNKaWaLLa" (punkha wallah).

Even when electricity became available, though not amply, office rooms crammed in a building had rooms fitted with such "PaNKaS" (punkhas) connected together with pulleys and ropes, and run by a single big electric motor. Such a network of ceiling fans was used in Yangon general hospital until the outbreak of World War II.

Life perforce was lived differently. Normally during the day the whole family gathered in one large room, possibly the living room. The floor was covered with carpets and there was a suspended beam acting as a frill holder which was the fan. There was no way each person could have a bedroom for the absence of electricity it was not possible to have a fan in each room. For this reason the whole family was obliged to spend teh day caged in that large room, lying about on the carpeted floor. The PaNKa (punkha) (fan above) was pulled from outside the room by a string attached to the crossbeam on the PaNKa (punkha) and going out of a hole in the wall outside where a poor devil had to tug at it the whole day, eight hours a day with sizzling heat outside and with no respite for him. If his pulling and tugging slackened or stopped he was bawled at. There was no way he could even get himself a drink of water. His was a merciless existence.

Then at about 7pm the family would emerge outside into the courtyard where charpoys (cots) were laid out for the night, for sleeping indoors without the fan was impossible. Sleeping outdoors in the cooler atmosphere was the only option.