Are these the last potters of Dharavi’s Kumbharwada?

While Kumbharwada’s potters strive to stay relevant, creating and painting intricate Deepavali diyas and delicate garba pots, their work continues to be tiring and poorly paid, prompting their children to look for jobs as wage labourers or henna artists

From dawn to dusk, the potter’s wheel turns at Dharavi’s Kumbharwada in Mumbai. It is 10am and a truck loaded with sacks has arrived right outside the narrow alleys of the neighbourhood lined with pottery shops.

As men carry the sacks through the alleys, truck driver Rakesh Gupta explains that the potters of Kumbharwada (kumbhar means potter and wada means colony) buy the clay from Gujarat — mountain rock is smashed and powdered to use as clay.

As we enter the lane, we spot a shop selling tools and paints. Potter-turned-shopkeeper Chetan Tank also stocks clay. Chetan shows an open bag of red powder called geru, a kind of soil that is used to polish earthen pots (matki) before they are baked in the kiln. “Geru is also powdered rock from Gujarat. It is said to have medicinal properties. Potters mix geru with water and apply it on burns for relief,” he says.

Families are busy polishing clay pots to keep in the sun. Some women are transporting pots in large bamboo baskets, balanced on their heads, to distribute to those who have taken a contract to paint and decorate them. Some women paint festival diyas, lamps and garba pots, while men make pots on electric potters’ wheels.

The living space in the Kumbharwada colonies has changed over the years as a result of a growing population. A decade or two ago, it used to be spacious. Today residents live in cramped makeshift arrangements, turning their huts into two or three-storied houses with wooden planks and metal sheets.

Some houses are fronted by shops while the rear opens into the alleys where they manufacture the clay products.

Changing pottery with changing times