The kind of men we don't like -
Men who pretend to be supermen.
Men who don't respect women or their work.
Men who think they can read a woman's mind and always fail.
Men who think they're always right.
Men who scratch.
Men who don't smell good always, no matter what.
Men who, for once, haven't made something with their own hands for their girlfriend/ biwi.
Men who can't write a line without spelling mistakes.
Men who don't know how to make a woman feel special.
Men who don't gift.
Men who can't take time off from work.
Men who can't prioritize.
Men who talk while they drive with a justification that they don't get time elsewise.
Men who think they can marry without proposing. Boo!
Men who think they're cool just because they sit in AC offices.
Men who snore loudly, everyday.
Men who make everyday, everyday.
Men who do a nine to five.
Men who are sorry figures.
Men who don't have patience.
Men who don't have Love and Sorry in their vocabulary.
Men who talk too much.
Men who talk too little.
Men who don't like women.
Men who nag.
Men who can't be men.
Men in general.
5 December 2009
9 November 2009
26 October 2009
Chinhat Charms
Not very advertised a place, Chinhat is located at the outskirts of Lucknow and is a must visit for all pottery lovers. I have been there a few times to shoot pictures, grab videos and talk to potters but I’m fond of the place for a reason other than that. I have been born and brought up in the same city. There’s an inviting air about the place, a positive energy, a down-to-earth attitude, a charm that casts a spell.
I visited a few traditional potters residing in the area. There were fewer potters at work than usual. I gathered from the ones who were there that monsoon is a dull season for production as there is a problem of drying and storage. I walked, walked and walked; from house to house, passing by several bhattis, areas for drying 'kacche' (leatherhard) pots in the sun, local shops and more potteries without its potters.
Basic and small, the potteries here churn out attractive planters, bowls, tea sets, mugs, vases and dinner sets round the year. The production picks pace around Diwali and most of it gets exported. Terracotta and stoneware clays both are used and usually the pots are left unglazed. Dozens of P.O.P. moulds of bonsai planters and lanterns can be spotted in these tiny households. Slip-casting is a favored technique but that doesn’t mean that the potters leave it at that. They spend ample time in fussy detailing of the pots. Each one is touched up for faults if there are any. It is all so natural that it seems almost effortless at that. The potters work on hand rotated wheels during the day, with natural light blessing their pots, unlike most studio potters who have electricity twenty four - seven to their advantage.
Simply dressed, the men and women potters here equal each other in number (almost) and match in skill. Production happens with collaboration and most importantly they enjoy what they're doing. Extremely approachable, these potters are not insecure about their craft or craftsmanship.
The unglazed pots usually get sold in and around Chinhat or exported whereas most of the glazed pots that are sold in the area are outsourced from Khurja, the ceramics city of India. These are mostly tableware and are glazed in bright colors. Brilliant blues, glorious greens, cheerful yellows and refreshing oranges are the favored colors of the lot. Unique patterns are hand painted too. These are microwave-proof and Mom picked up a few dishes for her kitchen. I bagged a few vases and soap dishes too, but came back with an everlasting memory of the pots still unpossessed.
I visited a few traditional potters residing in the area. There were fewer potters at work than usual. I gathered from the ones who were there that monsoon is a dull season for production as there is a problem of drying and storage. I walked, walked and walked; from house to house, passing by several bhattis, areas for drying 'kacche' (leatherhard) pots in the sun, local shops and more potteries without its potters.
Basic and small, the potteries here churn out attractive planters, bowls, tea sets, mugs, vases and dinner sets round the year. The production picks pace around Diwali and most of it gets exported. Terracotta and stoneware clays both are used and usually the pots are left unglazed. Dozens of P.O.P. moulds of bonsai planters and lanterns can be spotted in these tiny households. Slip-casting is a favored technique but that doesn’t mean that the potters leave it at that. They spend ample time in fussy detailing of the pots. Each one is touched up for faults if there are any. It is all so natural that it seems almost effortless at that. The potters work on hand rotated wheels during the day, with natural light blessing their pots, unlike most studio potters who have electricity twenty four - seven to their advantage.
Simply dressed, the men and women potters here equal each other in number (almost) and match in skill. Production happens with collaboration and most importantly they enjoy what they're doing. Extremely approachable, these potters are not insecure about their craft or craftsmanship.
The unglazed pots usually get sold in and around Chinhat or exported whereas most of the glazed pots that are sold in the area are outsourced from Khurja, the ceramics city of India. These are mostly tableware and are glazed in bright colors. Brilliant blues, glorious greens, cheerful yellows and refreshing oranges are the favored colors of the lot. Unique patterns are hand painted too. These are microwave-proof and Mom picked up a few dishes for her kitchen. I bagged a few vases and soap dishes too, but came back with an everlasting memory of the pots still unpossessed.
14 September 2009
Pandits @ Kalakaar niwas
It took me a hundred minutes from campus to hit Bhayander station. Fighting my way in and out of steaming mahila dibbas (of the local trains), I got pushed out where I intended to get off anyway. I took an autorickshaw from the station to Kalakaar niwas but two men jumped in it too. I liked the fact that it was a shared rick unlike other places in the city where one enthrones the auto like a maharaja, but what I did not like was the proximity of one of them. He was the typical touchy sorts (read: shady). I tried to give him looks but when he didn't take the hint I told him explicitly to keep away.
It wasn't too long before I saw a painted metal board reading Pandit ceramic arts at the start of a narrow gully. Dehydrated but relieved, I got off the rick and rushed in to find my way to the people & place I had wanted to visit for so long. The first hint of human habitation of the place was given by a kumbhar who was slipcasting a pot in the aangan. He told me to enter from the front gate. I did so, to be welcomed by a man in spotted white clothes. He was instructing the kumbhars on how to do something they're brilliant at, better.
Panditji didn't speak much but warmly showed around the studio cum home, full of tens of thousands of pots, with his wife Devkiji, clad in a grey cotton sari who didn't talk much either. After a quick chakkar of the three storied niwas which had stocks of their most selling item and USP - Bonzai - I stood at the ground floor staring at a huge kiln which rolled out on wheels to be loaded. Everyone was going about their jobs diligently and I looked on, completely intimidated by the size of the kiln, feeling small. As if someone read my mind right then, I heard a voice from behind me asking 'Big kiln isn't it?' and I turned around to be greeted by Abhay Pandit, Panditji's elder son. He introduced himself and so did I. He spoke at great length explaining minute details of the pots and processes and kept appreciating his 'Pappa's' efforts into building all this up for over forty years. Taking me around to show some of his studio pottery, he introduced me to his wife Khushboo and younger brother Sailesh. While Abhay concentrates on the form of the pot, Khushboo works out the fine detailing that goes on it. Sailesh isn't interested in doing pottery right now.
Khushboo showed some of her absolutely gorgeous pots, stark and confident black strokes achieved by controlled smoke firing (a technique that the couple knew before but perfected in UK recently). Abhay's work is strongly graphic (he has a fine arts background), inspired from absolutely anything in nature. Visual abstraction of landscapes, waves, corals, rocks & sun can be noticed in a lot of his pots. Flipping through some of their catalogs and holding some of the pots to feel them, I was served tea in an astonishing turquoise - choco brown glazed cup. The tea tasted different. I think I drank along with it the sweat, dedication & energy gone into making that one cup, perfect. Sailesh showed a potpourri of pots that were kept in the living room. These included works of renowned Indian and international potters, each one signed & dated.
I was in a completely different zone. A sense of lightness prevailed, like the feeling of being blessed. Hours had passed already. I had consumed quite a great deal of their time and didn't want to bother them more by encroaching on their routine. I left from the Pandits' thanking them for having spared so much time for me; came back without any pictures in the camera (but ofcourse in the brain's memory card) and that was the beauty of it.
It wasn't too long before I saw a painted metal board reading Pandit ceramic arts at the start of a narrow gully. Dehydrated but relieved, I got off the rick and rushed in to find my way to the people & place I had wanted to visit for so long. The first hint of human habitation of the place was given by a kumbhar who was slipcasting a pot in the aangan. He told me to enter from the front gate. I did so, to be welcomed by a man in spotted white clothes. He was instructing the kumbhars on how to do something they're brilliant at, better.
Panditji didn't speak much but warmly showed around the studio cum home, full of tens of thousands of pots, with his wife Devkiji, clad in a grey cotton sari who didn't talk much either. After a quick chakkar of the three storied niwas which had stocks of their most selling item and USP - Bonzai - I stood at the ground floor staring at a huge kiln which rolled out on wheels to be loaded. Everyone was going about their jobs diligently and I looked on, completely intimidated by the size of the kiln, feeling small. As if someone read my mind right then, I heard a voice from behind me asking 'Big kiln isn't it?' and I turned around to be greeted by Abhay Pandit, Panditji's elder son. He introduced himself and so did I. He spoke at great length explaining minute details of the pots and processes and kept appreciating his 'Pappa's' efforts into building all this up for over forty years. Taking me around to show some of his studio pottery, he introduced me to his wife Khushboo and younger brother Sailesh. While Abhay concentrates on the form of the pot, Khushboo works out the fine detailing that goes on it. Sailesh isn't interested in doing pottery right now.
Khushboo showed some of her absolutely gorgeous pots, stark and confident black strokes achieved by controlled smoke firing (a technique that the couple knew before but perfected in UK recently). Abhay's work is strongly graphic (he has a fine arts background), inspired from absolutely anything in nature. Visual abstraction of landscapes, waves, corals, rocks & sun can be noticed in a lot of his pots. Flipping through some of their catalogs and holding some of the pots to feel them, I was served tea in an astonishing turquoise - choco brown glazed cup. The tea tasted different. I think I drank along with it the sweat, dedication & energy gone into making that one cup, perfect. Sailesh showed a potpourri of pots that were kept in the living room. These included works of renowned Indian and international potters, each one signed & dated.
I was in a completely different zone. A sense of lightness prevailed, like the feeling of being blessed. Hours had passed already. I had consumed quite a great deal of their time and didn't want to bother them more by encroaching on their routine. I left from the Pandits' thanking them for having spared so much time for me; came back without any pictures in the camera (but ofcourse in the brain's memory card) and that was the beauty of it.
24 August 2009
A day not wasted @ Kumbharwada
‘It seems like Hong Kong’, exclaimed Prof. Mohanty seeing the expanse of the 'swine flu clean' expressway on our way to Sion in a fresh-out-of-the-oven-autorickshaw. The autowalla bragged off his new TVS noiseless rick when we told him 'Bhaisaab bohot badhiya auto hai'. It was a smooth joyride. I carried my camera and lots of enthusiasm for my first visit to the place.We hit Kumbharwada and met Yusuf, a potter who showed us around the place. The first glimpse of an old traditional potter is the one that is still clearly etched in my mind and shall always be. He's been making pots for quite some time now and works on 'chaak', a hand rotated wheel. He makes not dozens but a few hundred pots daily. Sheer delight to see him work at jetspeed. While he does this outside his household, his wife sits in the 'aangan' to make a spout in each of the leatherhard pots he would have made only couple of hours earlier.
Yusuf took us around to show huge kilns, foot kneading, several households that made different types of pots. Dozens, hundreds and thousands of those, each day. Later, he also made us meet his brother Haneef and his father who have a pottery studio of their own. We climbed a flight of totally spooky stairs to get there, but it was all so worth it. A hundred stoneware pots around you, identical, each one picture perfect.
Completely awed by this already, we walked further to Bhimji's studio. Saw very interesting, occasion-specific production of pots including Matkas for kulfi, Diyas for diwali, Ghadaas for puja. We spent some decent amount of time here and decided we wanted to take some pots back with us for the Ceramic studio at IDC. Bhimji agreed and very graciously gave four of his ravishing pots to us. Three fourth the height of me, each one of those pots talked. They talked of the amount of effort gone into making them, the astonishing simplicity about them, the grace with which they stand, tall. While these were being loaded and bound to the cab seat, we grabbed cutting chai. Though it was a lil too sweet, it was good for a starving stomach. Having finished that, we left for coming back to the campus, to unload the pots at the department and see them make magic, as it was in Kumbharwada.
19 July 2009
5 July 2009
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