Near Jajpur town is located one of the oldest potter settlements, Kumbharsahi. Thanks to the arrival of summer season, potters are now busy day-in and day-out to make thousands of pitchers. Witnessing flowing activities of potter’s wheel turning gently on its axis, lump of clay wondrously acquiring shape, women kneading clay and children collecting sun-dried pitchers, one forgets for a few magic moments that traditional potters are a dying breed.
Bespectacled Maguni Behera (75) is the leader here. Despite his age, he has the ability to turn out more than 50 pitchers a day to meet the huge demand of pitchers for summer season. “Our scope for work is restricted now. We make diyas during Diwali and pitchers in summer, flower-pot jars and sundry items throughout the year.
“But these sell at dismally low prices, and sales are generally slack, barring summer time,” said Behera. With the arrival of summer, the 100-odd potters are busy, giving final touches to the earthen pitchers to meet huge demands from the people. “For three years we have also been making earthen water coolers and jars. The potters have been working at this village since last March to earn more in the summer season. Many artisans spend more money to get electricity by using generators to work in the night to meet huge demands,” said Ramesh Behera (65), a potter.
The demand for pitchers remains steady in summer season despite the emergence of refrigerators,” said Saroj Behera (45), a potter of Kumbharsahi. “Making earthen pitchers is a seasonal business for which a large number of youths of our families now-a-days are not preferring to continue their forefathers’ works. “As a result, we are not getting young potters to teach them pitcher making art,” lamented Pabindra Behera(68), another potter of Kumbharsahi.
“Even during summer, more and more people are opting for pitchers to keep cool water in rural areas. But in urban areas, many people prefer to drink water of refrigerators rather than pitchers. At best, a potter family earns only Rs3,000 to Rs5,000 in summer season. Two decades back, potters used to get good quality of riverside- earth for making pitchers. But, now-a-days , the district administration imposed restriction on the potters and others to lift earth from the riverside areas to prevent soil erosion.
As a result, a large number of people of the artisan clan face problems to collect good quality earth to make pitchers and other earthen items,” said Giridhari Behera, a senior potter of Kumbharsahi.