Shaping their destiny

Inside the community space,half-broken idols and pots line the fenced area. An unfinished statue of goddess Durga stands in front of a dilapidated wall. A small truck visits the community everyday to transport earthenware to Kasba Peth. A few houses away,Asha Rahukar begins her work for the evening. The backyard of her house is full of half-made earthen tandoors. Ask her about the business and she says,”There is no publicity here. It’s too far away from the city and there is hardly any business from the neighbourhood. But we have now developed a system. My brother-in-law sits in Kasba Peth and we supply our wares to him.”

But not many boast of a network like this. In the far end of the lane,stands 64-year-old potter Gyaneshwar Shinde’s little house. More than a hundred earthenware cups lie in front of him,waiting to dry in the afternoon sun. He smiles as you ask him about his work. “I was seven years old when I started doing this. The work station here is very good. We have ample space to make a lot of stuff. But most of it is made only for wholesale markets. No customer walks in here. We don’t have anyone to sit and sell our wares in Kasba Peth,” he says.

Shinde makes close to 50 pots in a day. His work starts at 4 am and he uses the same old tools that his grandfather used. By about 8 pm,he wraps up. Shinde is one of the few potters at Mundhwa who still work with mud. Most have shifted to using Plaster of Paris.

Follow the sound of a motorised wheel and one reaches Datta Shinde’s house. Shinde’s is the first house in the community. As one walks in,an idol of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj greets one. “We started work on this motorised wheel some five years ago. It makes our work easier,but we need the mechanical wheel too. The big pots have to be made on the mechanical wheel.”

The community has accepted its shift to Mundhwa. Each house has tried to sell its craft and earn a living. But many are worried about how far they are from the main retail hub. “Most of the things being sold in Kasba Peth now come from Delhi,Rajasthan and Siliguri. It’s not entirely our market now,” says Gyaneshwar as he adds dry mud in the mould and continues with his hard work.