Styles in different States of India

The Community of Potters

The Kumhars derive their name from the Sanskrit word Kumbhakar meaning earthen-pot maker.

Traditionally known as the kumbhar or khumhar’s, they are potters who make earthen vessels, water pots, decorative homewares, toys and idols of gods and goddesses. The name Kumhar denotes a maker of pots and pitchers or someone who creates. They are an integral part of Indian society because their creations are an integral part of an Indian’s daily life rituals. One of the largest castes, they are reportedly spread across 212 districts of India, predominantly in the states of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Gujarat, Maharashtra, parts of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. They are known by different names in each state.

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A potter’s family in front of their house making diyas, from Rajasthan.

Their Lives

In a typical Kumbhar household, the entire family is involved in various stages of making of the products. The men are the primary artisans, involved with working on the wheel while women are involved in preparing the mitti ka gola, the clay dough and decorating the products. The men set up the bhatti and are assisted by the women.

All the children who are of the age attend nearby schools and intend to complete their education to find jobs in the city. The parents are supportive and in fact prefer if their children find work outside the kumbhar community because of better opportunities and better income. They don’t force their children to continue this art as they want their children to have a better lifestyle and a fixed income. Although they don’t regret becoming Kumbhar themselves, they feel their children would have a more secure future if they opt for some other career.

The children themselves are involved passively in the production process, sometimes filling the bhatti, dipping the pots in geru and painting the diyas. Their parents say that the children learn from watching them but they are not usually seen on the wheel making the pots nowadays contrary to their parents who worked on the wheel since their early childhood helping their fathers.

They say, there were times when families would marry their daughters to the Kumbhar community, but this does not hold true anymore. In Fact nowadays they prefer men outside the Kumbhar community. Some adults in the family has taken up full-time jobs in government/ private sectors to support their family. This may have disconnected them from the pottery craft, but they do practise pottery whenever they have time. The current generation believes that they must find a median between pottery and regular jobs to maintain a decent livelihood, but none of them forfeit the art of pottery completely acknowledging they can disassociate from. The life of a potter involves a lot of labour work and long hours with less returns, which forces their children to seek other professions. There are other opportunities in the modern world which the potters had to adapt to sustain their living. They earn by teaching the students at pottery workshops held by the schools and the pottery sessions at marriages and birthday parties fetches them a decent income depending on the number of participants. Sometimes the potters also get orders from the middlemen who would want a certain amount of wares to be produced for a commercial outlet or for designer stores.

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The story of Prajapati community The beliefs of the Hindu potters

Once Brahma divided sugarcane among his sons and each of them ate his share, but the Kumhara who was greatly absorbed in his work, forgot to eat. The piece which he had kept near his clay lump struck root and soon grew into a sugarcane plant. A few days later, when Brahma asked his sons for sugarcane, none of them could give it to him, except the Kumhara who offered a full plant. Brahma was pleased by the devotion of the potter to his work and awarded him the title Prajapati. There are a lot of Hindu potters in India, they believe in different Hindu traditions. Most of them worship the trinity of god in the morning along with their tools as a respect towards the art.

The Hindu Kumhar claim that they emerged on earth with the blessing of the Hindu trinity – Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Brahma the creator gave them his art, Vishnu the preserver his wheel and Shiva the destroyer, his form. Many communities believe in this.

Arumugam Perumal

(Runs a pottery business) He is a 35 year old potter, this pottery business was started by his grandfather. He took over after his father, this is the 3rd generation in this business. He uses machinery tools that help him in making creative and artistic clay articles. He has learned many new modern techniques and he combines them with his own techniques to get the most out of it.

(Potter from Nizamabad) He is a potter belonging to the Prajapati Community from Nizamabad. He has been practising pottery since the 1980s. He says he learned it from his parents while helping them in his childhood. Now his whole family helps him with this process of making pots. Due to lack of transport facilities in his village he is forced to sell his products within the boundaries of the village.

Brijlal Prajapati

Abdul Ahad

(Potter from Kumhar Mohalla, Kashmir) Abdul Ahad a 70-year-old potter from Kumhar Mohalla, Kashmir is one of the last remaining potters, and himself a classic example of the decline in pottery trade. Ahad inherited the pottery craft from his father but his own children remain away from it, they say the returns are too dismal to support the family. Ahad blames the availability of stainless steel and aluminium products for the decline in demand of the pottery.

Nilesh Khandekar

He is a 4th year design student at United World Institute of Design in the LSA department. He has a keen interest in the art of pottery and has done some amazing work in this field.

He developed interest in this art during his 2nd year in UID, his mentor Deepak sir helped him learn this art. He worked with different kinds of clay and explored different techniques. He is planning to carry forward this art as a hobby and discover new things and in the pottery art.

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The Art of Pottery Making

Tracing the process of making pots

The primary material required for any type of pottery is Clay. This is available in different forms in different states of India. The clay in its natural form is further processed through various steps to make it soft and kneadable for making pots. This whole process requires constant monitoring of clay to obtain the best consistency. Every community of potter has their own way of making pots based on their traditions, culture and location.

Clay Making

In the initial stages, the clay is in the form of mud. This mud is acquired from nearby places in towns/ villages, in cities sometimes the agent or the middlemen supplies the mud to the potters. This mud is not in its best form at the beginning, it consists of lots of stones and other non required materials. Different regions have different methods of separating the stones, the common method is to soak the mud in water and then separate the stones using a sieve (chalanee).

Then the mud is gathered and kept in a moist place wrapped with a cloth. This mud is then kneaded thoroughly to get a soft and consistent texture. This is a very difficult task and requires a lot of labour work. After the basic clay is ready, it depends on potter to potter to make any other transformation based on their products. Women collect water in the early hours of the morning to facilitate the preparation process

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www.sahapedia.org Women of the house preparing the clay mounds Potter arranging the clay mounds together

Preparing the Mounds

Once the clay is prepared, women of the family take charge to convert the prepared clay to form the dough which can weigh upto 5-7 kg depending on the requirement of the potter. Each dough takes upto 5 minutes to mould. While making the dough, water is consistently added to smoothen the clay. At some places the potters hire women to make this dough. Nowadays, machinery is available in the market for making doughs, but requires more labour and time in comparison to the manual method.

Behind the Wheel

Once the clay dough is ready, the artist grabs his seat behind the wheel to turn this chunk of clay into beautiful articles. The clay is placed in the middle of the wheel and then the wheel is rotated. Majorly the wheel is automated, but in some small villages the potter rotates the wheel manually using a stick consistently.

As the wheel rotates, the potters use their artistic hands to shape the clay in different sizes and shapes of pots. The pot is then detached from the clay using a fine thread and then placed on a wooden plank till it’s ready for baking. There are also other methods of making pots, especially larger pots. These larger pots are made in two parts owing to their size and are later joined together using a fine paste made of clay. The two halves are made using a pre-made structure of Plaster of Paris mould. Clay is applied manually on the inner walls of these two moulds. Once this is complete, the two halves are left for drying with a layer of newspaper, stuck on the inner surface to make it stay firm and avoid cracks.

The potter moving the electric wheel out in sun in order to get some light in chilly winters.

Hand-beaten pottery is an alternative to the spinning wheel. It is considered that the first pots made by humans were made using this technique. A difficult technique to master, it takes much skill and practice to make hand-beaten pots.