SARJAN
A Process of Creation/ A Struggle for Survival
Photographs by Avaneesh Bhatt
An Exhibition at the NCPA, Piramal Gallery,
23rd Novermber, 2007 - 2nd December, 2007.
Aakruti Art Gallery
Kirti Mandir, Vadodara,
23rd December, 2007 to 25th December, 2007.
Contact: Avaneesh Bhatt
3A Jayshree
21 Andheri Society, V.P. Road,
Andheri W, Mumbai - 400 058.
Phone: +91-22-2625 3321.
avaneesh.bhatt@gmail.com
I have always wondered at the process of clay getting a shape on the potter’s wheel. As a teenager exploring the bodies of my lovers, I used to imagine God shaping women’s breasts on a potter’s wheel. “I wish to lend you my hand, God!” I would utter. This fantastic image was soon forgotten. I became seriously interested in photographically documenting the work of potters during one of my visits to their locality in Mumbai. While passing through the narrow lanes of their world, once my foot touched a potter’s wheel lying around. An old potter at once cried in Gujarati, “Arei! Dyhaan raakho, aato bhrammaanu chaakadu chhe, ene paga naa laagi jaay! ” (“Arei! Take care! This is the wheel of God Brahma, don’t let your foot touch it!”) It was then that I felt like taking pictures of this act of creation taking place on a divine machine. A lump of clay gets a beautiful shape, eventually made more beautiful as it becomes a functional utensil in middle-class homes.
My encounter with the Kumbharwada turned out to be more than just an excursion for photography. During my visit I learnt a lot about the struggle of the community to retain their space in Dharavi (Mumbai), the largest slum in Asia. I got to know how those peace-loving Gujarati potters have fought with the masked sharks who had come with the mission of rehabilitating slums-dwellers. The potters retorted, “Can we have our kilns on the fifth floor of a building? Where shall we have space for these wheels? We also need storage for clay.” Women added that they would miss a number of shrines that had been built in the locality. Another dimension to their problem is added by the way these potters run their business. Most of them live in a joint family, as their work demands many hands. Even if their locality is renovated, the proximity of their extended family cannot be sacrificed. Hence, the potters insist that they themselves understand their development, “These professional developers know about slums. They don’t know a thing about potters.”
Displacement, even if it is chosen, is never easy. Human beings are culturally placed and functional; any attempt of re-locating them will result in stress and re-wiring of their lives. This should be considered when handling the lives of people living and working in Dharavi. It seems the potters have won the first battle. They have opted out of the Mumbai ‘beautification’ project for now (‘Beautiful’ for whom? At whose cost?). The meek have definitely defended a piece of land this time, they might not have not inherited the earth. As yet. Two thousand potter families continue to live on more than 11 acres of land in Dharavi.
If this story of potters’ struggle to retain their space under the sun was redeeming, to witness the step-by-step technique of pot-making was an humbling experience. From malleable clay, the potters make a form. It is then left for drying. It makes way for the kiln for some physical solidity. Women take up the decoration part, something that comes to them naturally: painted and made beautiful to make their way in the world, the utensils are ready. But not for a long passage of real life. How many of us have not heard maa yelling when a clay pan is broken or when a matka falls off the kitchen platform? These fragile pots and pans are memorable visuals of my childhood – broken, fissured or intact. Their life and fragility are similar to the journey of human body. This reminded me of the Saint poet Kabir. Ironically, he speaks of a victory of the meek, in which the potters are at the receiving end. Kabir has put retributive words in the mouth of potter’s clay, “Mitti kahe kumbhaarase tu kyaa ronde moye/ eka din aisa aayegaa mai rondugi toye. ” (“Clay tells the potter, ‘Who are you to mash me into paste/ A time will come when I will do the same to you.’ ”) If a young man of a potter family, now working with the merchant navy, is to be believed, this day might not be metaphorically very far. For the young generation does not wish to do this work of pottery, which does not bring anything more than a spartan meal twice a day.
Thus these photographs make an important document of an endangered skill. As the art of pottery and the land of potters are in a jeopardy, I repeatedly asked a potter why he continues with this work. He avoided the answer at first, but then he had to respond to my probing queries. With some sort of resignation he said, “Because I have to.” Thus the process of creation turns into a struggle for survival.
I am involved with the profession of teaching to some extent. Hence, the process of a lump of clay getting transformed into a functional utensil brought to mind that flock of raw students who come to school every year and leave after a few years with their faces glowing with confidence and a sense of direction.
Yet at the end of the day what remained most disturbing was something else. What it was, I am not sure. When I went to sleep, a few words came to me, “Be my father, make me...Give me a shape, show me the way. Be my father. Be my maker...”
Was I crying?
---Avaneesh Bhatt---
“Usually the amateur is defined as the immature state of the artist: someone who cannot - or will not - achieve the mastery of a profession. But in the field of the photographic practice, it is the amateur, on the contrary, who is the assumption of a professional: for it is he who stands closer to the noeme [‘that has been’] of Photography.”
Roaland Barhes
