Vanishing craft

HANDICRAFTS: The traditional potters of Khurja are faced with issues crucial to their art's survival.

"If the government provides us with funds for upgrading our kilns, we would be in a much better position," says Hamid, a potter we find sitting in a small corner of his house where his father, a master potter, once sat.

Even as Khurja pottery graces corners of hotels and homes, the lanes of Khurja, UP, tell a different story.

On a pottery tour, courtesy Foundation for Arts, an NGO that has been associated with the upliftment of traditional potters and safeguarding their talent, we find that kilns have disappeared "" from 200, we are told only 55-odd kilns remain "" while potters still wait for funds to have schools and health centres started. Then there are tanneries that are thriving and health which is a serious issue in this place.

Hamid's brother Zahir, also a potter, tells us, "We want the government to understand our needs." The first and foremost requirement of the traditional potters, according to Zahir, is the government providing them funds for kilns.

"The bhattis," adds Zahir, will cost us around Rs 10 lakh. Right now we use 500 litres of diesel for our products. The new double trolley kiln will use 600 litres of diesel but we can produce three times the products we do today."

Zahir and Hamid usually make pottery products on order, and supply them to Allahabad, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Mumbai and other places. The clientele includes five-star hotels, caterers, individuals and corporate houses too.

And even though their products are appreciated far and wide, it may take long before their working and living conditions can considerably improve.

Navina Jafa from the NGO informs that even though the government has sanctioned them an amount as funds (approximately Rs 60 lakh, says a source), the problem is that it'll be given only in installments and may take a long time to finally reach the NGO.

And while potters like Hamid may have to wait for government loans, they also face threat from the tanneries that are suddenly thriving in Khurja. The damage has been so intense that the NGO had to shut down one of its centres after one of the tanneries contaminated the nearby lake and children started falling sick.

Jafa says, "We tried to communicate our concern to the authorities but only two tanneries were shut down."