Hey friends, this is a long read, coz it’s a facet of my life’s journey, a piece that will go into my memoir! If you got the patience read it, else “like”the pictures and move on!
The Unknown Potter of Sharaf Bazar
मिट्टी का तन, मस्ती का मन, क्षण भर जीवन, मेरा परिचय।
(A body of clay, a mind full of fun, living in the moment- that’s me)
– Harivansh Rai Bachchan (~ हरिवंश राय बच्चन )
I must have been all of eight or nine years of age…….. Nani, plowed through clutching the scores of bags she carried, her small hands despite the heavy shopping, did not for a second slack their grip on my wrist as she skilfully wove her way by locating minute gaps between people and squeezing through. I mindlessly let myself be tugged behind her through the chaotic peoplescape, of Bhuj’s Sharaf Bazar. Sharaf Bazar has always roared with rage – large lopsided carts decorated with a collage of vegetables and fruits, having obviously overflowed the pre-independence era Garrison which now serves as the vegetable and fruit market, lined both sides of the already narrow street. The air was impregnated not only with hawkers screaming prices like auctioneers but was a whole kaleidoscopic adventure, with a nincompoop trying to get his overladen cart across the bustling market street, frustrated housewives angrily arguing with the annoyed shopkeepers, a sweaty vendor waving a carrot to shoo off the flies hovering in the hope of an ooze from an over ripe golden Kesar Keri…….. they called it the “Shaak Market” but I have always been convinced that you could get anything and everything under the sun inside the red and white arches of that grand colonial structure……………
…..that’s when I saw him. Sweat glistening off his forehead in a dimly lit corner, working in the light of the sole dusty bulb dangling off the pewter wall sconce,
The Kumbhar!
His clay smirched wheel spinning. His soul? oblivious to all the madness that surrounded him. It was as if, He and his pot, had transcended into a realm that was beyond the understanding of ordinary human cognition ! I was mesmerised as I watched his graceful fingers subtly coaxed life into the beautiful Kutchi Rann ki Mitti transforming it into a traditional matlo. His heart, his mind and his hands were is perfect sync. It seemed like he was in a deep trance, serene – unruffled amidst the tumultuousness of the world that surrounded him.
Nani tugged at my hand, but I could not move. Something in my eyes told Nani, this was not just an awestruck child’s gaze of wonder, this had pierced way deeper, probably into the deepest layers of my soul. She loosened her grip on my wrist and let me watch the Kumbhar continue with his sublime adagio, till his ballerina fingers performed the final plié in reverence and set the finished pot next to many others previously made. Nani sensing the impact the Potter had on me, said, “ તને ખબર છે? આપણે બધા પણ આ માટલાં જોવા છીએ, એક વાર ગડાઇ જાએં તો આપણા જીવન નો આંતરિક હેતુ આખા જીવન દરમિયાન કાયમ રહે, પછી પાછા માટી માં મળી જાયેં।”( translation: “ do you know? We are all like this pot, once we are formed, our inner purpose stays with us for the whole life, then we merge back into the earth”) Did I understand the depth of her words then? No! …….There was a profound silence between Nani and me as we trudged back home, we both were aware that something had shifted inside of me and my connection to clay was sealed for eternity. I don’t think my Clamorous Summertime Nanihal with all my cousins under that one roof, has ever discerned a Silence that loud, it was as if I had contracted the infection of quiet and peace from The Kumbhar by just watching him throw a pot. The memory of that experience was etched into the core of my being………….I said to myself “ one day my fingers too will shape wet earth into ………!
Life got in the way……..on and off I would nostalgically relive that day …………other things took precedence……! Whistle I never gave up on my creativity ……… I dawdled in a lot of things, and deeply immersed my being into a few…………I dove into the mystery, the vagueness and fantasy of dreaming my paintings and painting my dreams on canvases…….I gathered the threads of my life and stitched them into joy, but the bobbin thread always ran out one inch from the end of my final seam……….I even thought I could create “the perfect marriage” (tsk tsk, no one is to call the Bitter Half to confirm of its success)…….. yet all along that feeling that there was something missing nagged at me…..as Bernard Leach once said “A potter is one of the few people left who uses his natural faculties of heart, head and hand in balance – the whole man,” I wasn’t being my whole self…….Some how I had managed to leave my dream of moulding Clay behind…….!
……. Then one afternoon in the summer of 2008 my phone rang, it was Ma calling from Bhuj, She said “ Nani, gave up, she couldn’t fight anymore…..she is gone”, …… my heart poignantly raced back to Nani and me standing and watching The Kumbhar in Sharaf Bazar that day, and her words ……….”merge back into the earth”! The meaning of Her words pierced the soul…….I had let life slip through my fingers like loose sand, what had become of the awe inspired child that had hoped to center a malleable nubble of wedged earth moulding it with her own cupped hands to breath life into a form that would willingly diminish its own importance to high-light its function of being able to hold within itself………., alas, yet again I let my fascination with clay become that ember in the heart’s fireplace which faded from a bright passionate glow to a cold and lifeless gray……….Fast forward to 2014,………The Sonshine was in high school and did not need me as much……I had the brand new double diagnosis of RA and Diabetes to weep a river over…..basically I was at that face of life when God would have sent me to a potters house to learn…….! It was time to blow the dust off of the smouldering ember and make it glow!
If the metaphor of “clay and the student” was geographically set in modern day Africa, then there is but one Potter, that God would send Jeremiah to visit – Waithera Chege! For no one I repeat no one could possibly teach a student the way she does, to dip one’s hands into their soul and let the fingers shape their being into the pots they then can call their own. Finding Waithera when I did was in all its truth – GodSend! A teacher so giving, so perceptive, so patient, so encouraging, ……..believing in you more than your own self…….a Rare Gem!
………. Ten years and counting………..of not just learning Pottery…….. of making friends that are better than the best Therapists……..of celebrating the triumphs of the craft and of being humbled by its fragility……of understanding that not everything needs to be perfect…… but of also understanding Clay- the mirror of life itself, and eventually asking our being the question, “Who do we act like more: The Potter or the Clay?”…………….”But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are thy clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.” Isaiah 64:8. ………
Clay as the Metaphor of life……you wedge me to homogenise the errant emotions , and center me on life’s wheel, I stray, I spin out of focus, life gets wobbly and off-centered…….I head towards becoming yet another organic bowl, …..but you won’t have it, you know there can be so much more to me, you hold me gently before I collapse, and bring me down, grounding me again, you lift me up, and boost my spirits, with subtle pressure, I know I should surrender….but my spirit has wings, so I flutter……you don’t give up, you pull me up and collar me in, and yet again you breathe a fresh lease on my life.…. I become all primed up, my walls even and sturdy ready for the next chapter in my life……Embarking upon a new journey…. You turn me, you carve me…..and burnish me into a beautiful piece of art ……..ready for the ultimate test of fire, the arduous journey is at its ebb…..the wait is over, the destiny doors open ………I am me!
Today, on my Nani’s death anniversary and ironically the day I started my Clay Journey a decade ago……..today when I finally understand the reason why a potter always mesmerises his audience……..I courtesy in reverence to the Unknown Potter of Sharaf Bazar!
Let me leave you with this final quote by Lupita Nyong’o, “Clay can be dirt in the wrong hands, but clay can be art in the right hands”.
We are but God’s Artworks!
( For the reader who is yet to explore the fascination of India….
Harivansh Rai Bachchan – a multilingual, Indian poet with a PhD on W.B Yeats from Cambridge. Nani – Chanchal Ben Jayantilal Kalyanji, my Maternal Grandmother.
Bhuj – a city in the Kutch district of Gujarat, India, the city where I spent all my summer vacations till I was 18 and where my heritage belongs.
Sharaf Bazar – the busy bustling area in old town Bhuj, that fascinates me even today.
Kesar Keri – a variety of Indian Mango, from the Kutch region known for its saffron like fragrance and colour.
Shaak Market – translates to Vegetable Market but could easily be known as the supermarkets of bygone days.
Kumbhar – a person belonging to a traditional community of potters, primarily found in the Indian subcontinent.
Kutchi Rann ki Mitti – a rare clay used to make the famed “Kavada Ghadai pottery” sourced from the desert lake near the village of Khavada. The uniqueness of this clay is that it withstands both extreme heat and cold conditions, a quality that is literally and metaphorically true of the people of Kutch also.
Matlo – water storage pot, but holding way more connotations than a water reservoir.
Nanihal – the home and family of the maternal Grandmother, in India the home is always said to belong to the lady of the house.