Fading away

Are we forgetting one of our native industry? Pottery being an age old handicraft, the roots of whose date back to the indus valley civilization seems to be fading away. This very thought kept on disturbing me for quite some time when i finally decided to visit one of the pottery village in the outskirts of delhi called Kumhargram.

Here, hundreds of potter families migrated during severe famine from Rajasthan in search for better living condition. Out  of the hundreds of families only a handful could climb a little high on their career lader and the rest remained deprived. Creativity is the life-line of the potters; their unique craftsmanship indicates the artistic manifestation of rural India. If implemented effectively, it could be a sustainable model of development that is artisan led is what got me thinking. Skilled potters have the potential throughout India for constituting a rich human resource base, and common clay, being one of the cheapest raw materials available, holds tremendous scope for development of different products, yet they are facing threat of existence.

Tracing the root to their problem by stirking conversations and through observation, i realised pottery suffers from productivity due to obsolete tools/techniques/processes, shrinking market, competition from non-clay industrial products and exploitation by the non-potter middlemen who are depriving them of their labour intensive livlihood.
While speaking to my dad, who is an architect , the first basic problem that he cited was of the breakage problem and it was then i realised that most of us are not up to date with their development. It was during this visit that i learnt about fibre pottery, which gives a solution to the breakage problem , and saw the various three dimensional figures that can be made using fible pottery. There i also learnt about blue art pottery which also plays a leading role in our export market.

i was awestruck to see the various talented potters making  perfect 3D human figures to miniature pottery, i also learnt that since Rajasthan has an extreme climate these pots can be used as insulators, pots stuck on mud walls also gives an aesthetic beauty forming crest and trough in the wall.

Trying my hands at the pottery wheel i realised, it is not that easy and needs a lot of patience, perseverence and perfection, it was then when i realized it is high time we get these unheard voices heard.

In this fast globalising world, why cant potters have a rich,well connected market network? Will it not be a good idea to have a clay pot in each of our houses during summer and save on a little bit of electricity and keep our traditions alive? It is only us who can revolutionize this industry, probably my designing friends can come up with creative designs,landscapes, human figures to help improve these potters livelihood and it would be a good idea because as we all know clay is one of the cheapest raw material.
My friends it is high time we pay some serious attention to this field or else one of our ancient industry will soon disappear, sons of potter families hardly wants to take up their fathers profession any more and therefore it is time for us to put on our thinking caps!

Our traditional earthern pots..

Landscaping using clay..a clay wall..