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Going potty over clay
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You can cook your greens, gulp your water, and fry your fish in clay vessels, and you'll be guaranteed the flavour of yesteryears. Ethnic chic has made the potter a much sought-after figure in the middle-class home, writes CHARUMATHI SUPRAJA.
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From the humble lamps, ovens, flowerpots, and vessels to the posh and arty statements.
CALL IT, mud, earth or dust, it has always held the human imagination. A symbol of the circle of life, mud has always been associated with creativity and expression, for utility, art, and entertainment. Pottery really has been around so long that metal and plastic seem like upstarts. Not surprisingly, many choose to drink only matka pani, cook their greens, and fish for that special flavour only in their well-seasoned earthen vessels.
Water kept in a mud vessel contains lesser bacteria than that in containers made from 32 other materials: Padma, a bank employee read something to this effect before she started drinking cool water from an earthen vessel. She has special pots for cooking her greens and fish. "They just don't taste that special if made in any other vessel."
"Pots bring good luck," is ceramic art exponent Preeti Ravindran's take on why they are so lastingly popular. The preferred base for ceramic art is still pottery, she points out, adding that many people join her courses specially to create decorative pottery for the house.
The ethnic trend fired public imagination during the early Eighties much through pottery. Whether it was efforts by the Khadi and Village Industries Board in promoting cottage industry or otherwise, the fact is even two decades later the use of pottery has only gone up. This despite the kind of price tags art works sport at most emporiums and sales.
"It is just a piece of mud after all," say some, but that could cost anything up to Rs. 6,000. Madhu and Aditi of Earthen Symphony, a studio in Indiranagar, agree that the business of designer pottery is "very lucrative". "Even our potters have grown with the rising demand and can produce the vaguest of shapes that we ask for," says Aditi. Though they don't make the pots, sprayed in the brightest shades, and dressed with ropes, pebbles or tile, pottery takes a new light and look here.
"While murals can only be put on the walls, pottery can fill in your odd corners too," points out Madhu. Earth colours are now passé and bolder ochres, blues, and golds are the order of the day, say the artists.
Gitanjali Krishan of Komfort Interiors points out that the best thing about pottery is that it can be made to order. "I tell Earthen Symphony the colours, shape, size, texture, finish, and the look I want for the pieces I buy from them." She even gives them the curtain fabric before they start off so that a whole room can be done in a colour scheme.
Whether for software companies, homes, or guesthouses, she uses pottery lavishly. "It is an ideal cosmetic, and filler agent," she says. And cost effective too. "Earlier, house plants used to be kept in brass pot holders. Now, more working women are asking for terracotta pots with artificial plants.
Pottery has a place in a home.
"That makes it completely maintenance free. Put a glass over a pot and use it as a table or cover the smaller, designed ones with stained glass, and light up the mood of the room; pottery can suit any place or arrangement," says Gitanjali.
Harini Rajan, an architect, agrees that there is a versatility about pottery that makes it popular. "It can warm and enliven cold dark corners, staircases, table tops, any empty space really."
Preethi, a housewife, says earthen pottery, more than ceramics, makes her home Indian. "The roadside pottery is arguably the best in terms of design and price, so why not invest there?"
S.V. Govindappa who has been selling pots at South End Circle for 20 years now, could not have agreed more. "Designer pottery may be beautiful, but why pay so much for something that may break when your children run around? We have had excellent business over the last 10 years. We sell to studios, lodges, hotels, and even houses. In fact, we have expanded the business though roadside sellers have come in from other States."
When it comes to designer pottery, sales at Safina Plaza, and emporiums such as Central Cottage Industries Emporium, rule the roost. Recently, the legendary Khurja pottery was showcased at the Cottage with much success. "We have at least two pottery sales every year, and Bangalore's who's who are ready to lap them up," says, Mukherjee, Manager, Central Cottage Industries Emporium.
That pottery is a huge hit with the masses and classes is easy to believe by the crowds that pour in and out of Pottery town. Cars stop, deals struck, boots filled, and both buyer and the seller depart satisfied.
The people who come may be decorators, house-owners or artists, says M. Chinnaraj, a potter. Paying "mamool" to the police, and buying straw to pack the pots are the expenditure Chinnaraj incurs while getting his pots transported from Kolar to his shop, where the priciest pot is Rs. 100.
Pottery has a place in every home.
Nanjundappa, President of Kumbara Kara Kushala Kaigarika Sahakara Sangha, emphasises that business has shot up over the last 10 years. A supplier of made-to-order pottery to emporiums, he says, "our finish is superior to that available on the City's roadside shops."
Pottery Town was born when the Government gave 60 potters a designated area on a 30-year lease.
The 23 families that are still in business here hope that this lease will be renewed or the land given to them next year, in the light of the work they are doing.
Photos: V. Sreenivasa Murthy
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