Potters try to keep home fires going on KH road

O Rajendran’s late wife’s framed photograph occupies the pride of place at the spot where he has been selling clay pots for the past 50 years. “My wife died here on the same spot a few years ago. This is the least that I can do,” says the 67-year old. 

He and others like him say the business is slowing dying, and they are clueless as to what can be done to save the once-lucrative business. Rajendran says his life has shrunk to that of a pavement establishment. “I have been in the same stretch for the past 50 years. My family was the first to come here and over the years, other potters started coming to the stretch. We used to make our own pots here. We had our own potter’s wheel and the baking furnace to dry the clay right here,” he says, spreading his hands. “There were not so many buildings here then. As the area developed, we had to stop making our products here. It’s been around 20 years since we stopped manufacturing on the spot. Nowadays we source the products from other areas. We have been reduced to being mere sellers on the footpath,” says Rajendran. 

Kodambakkam High Road is a hub for terracotta artefacts and clay pots. The business establishments there have reduced over the years. Banumathi V, whose family has also been in the business here for decades says, “Now that we are not allowed to manufacture here, we outsource our products from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, West Bengal and sell them. This has led to increase in expenditure in the form of transportation cost and the wastage expenditure. Products worth thousands gets damaged during the transportation,” she says. 

One can find numerous shops on the pavements. Those selling pots also stock soil and compost used for planting saplings or seeds, all piled up on the footpath. “We are forced to walk on the road because the pavements are occupied. The Kodambakkam High Road  (towards the Nungambakkam side of the flyover) is already congested as it has two-way traffic. The lack of pedestrians space poses huge risk to those on the foot,” says Manoj R., a resident of Kodambakkam. 

Some of the terracotta vendors say they have approached the government for a permit to sell the products in the public spaces there. “There is a park on the stretch which lies empty for most part of the day. We have asked the authorities and people from both the major political parties in the state to be allowed to sell in the park but nothing has happened so far. No one appears to care for this dying art. We can’t leave this place, because we have been here for decades and the memories are many,” says Rajendhran.