“I decided to glamorise pottery”

Life seemed good. I had a government job as an engineer, a social life and a loving family. And then it all changed.

Domestic violence, body shaming about my skin colour – I endured them all. A marriage knot that was supposed to be a new beginning took me to the far end of life. And then it ended.

But a failed marriage and social taunts only pushed me against the wall. There was no relief.

There was a time when mental trauma, coupled with severe depression, made this world such a dark place for me.

I was on the brink of collapse. Life seemed to have stopped for me.

Would you believe me if I told you it was a vase that brought me back from the brink?

My mother and I had bought a painted clay vase from a potter on the outskirts of Chandigarh.

I never imagined that an artefact would open a totally new world for me.

“If a potter can make such a beautiful object from clay, why can’t you?” said an inner voice. That voice touched my soul.

Immediately, I searched for places where I could learn this art.

My search took me to Bengaluru. I enrolled in one of the popular pottery studios there.

When I came back to the valley, I saw our pottery workshops looked medieval – because there was no advanced equipment.

But the bigger issue is that pottery is looked down upon.

While interacting with potters, I found out about the hardships they faced.

Their woes are many – from seeing no future in pottery to their children not wanting to continue their family’s ancestral craft.

I wondered how to motivate them.

Also, I wanted to tell people if I can become a potter, so can you!

I realised that the first step to revive the age-old tradition would be to instil hope and self-respect among the community.

So I decided to glamorise pottery.

But how to go about it? Using social media appeared to be the best option.

I decided that my handle would be @kralkoor – “a potter girl” in local parlance. I started uploading pictures and videos of my work. I think people were seeing an educated young woman at the potter’s wheel for the first time.

Soon I had thousands of followers. There was a lot of buzz on the internet. People, who otherwise preferred to hide their identity, started to share their art on social media too.

People in the valley are now openly owning their age-old craft with pride.

With the state government seeking my support to promote pottery, I’m happy to say that pottery is in the limelight again.

Reporting by Nasir Yousufi, an independent journalist based in Srinagar. Photos by Nasir Yousufi and Saima Shafi Mir. Representational image by Dương Nhân, Pexels.