Around 80 kilometers away from Nagpur is the little hamlet of Pachdhar in Seoni, Madhya Pradesh. This village is famously christened after the rivulet Pachdhar passing through the village extending to some forest areas of the Pench National Park. Driving through the NH-7 on either side of the highway, one witnesses a photogenic landscape of deciduous Teak trees,
paddy fields, and a cluster of potters practicing earthenware and clay works. Inhabited by approximately 100 households, the village is native to the traditional potter community, vernacularly known as Kumhaars.
This geography owing to its proximity to Nagpur and Vidarbha has a rich composition of earth and soil – with black soil in abundance. Conducive to cotton cultivation, black soil exhibits high moisture retention qualities, and is one of the most superior forms of soil utilized in pottery all across the country.
Farmers and potters of Pachdhar, practice this timeless handcraftsmanship as their primary occupation next to only subsistence agriculture. Painted with white and blue, almost every house is made of mud (kaccha houses), has huge verandahs for moulding earth into earthen utilities and beautiful crafts.
Matkis (spherical earthen vessels used to store water), Gamla (flower pots), Gullak (piggy banks), Diyas (lamps), Kulhar (famous chai glasses) are some of the traditional products people master here on manual potter wheels. The process of production is typically organic comprising of mostly natural ingredients, eventually hand-made and shaped – with no mechanical excesses.
The basic raw material – black soil is procured in tractors from fields – owners of which are willing to transact. Till recently, potters would excavate fertile soil from the river banks in the vicinity, but the process ceased once that area came under the purview of Pench National Park and its forest reserves.
The other raw materials required are red soil for making the distinctive red color; water to mix large proportions of earth so as to obtain a consistent concoction of pure black soil through kneading of clay. Fire wood, cow dung, bricks, broken pots, and hay/husk are materials used to make ‘natural’ or ‘traditional’ kilns for ‘bisque firing’ earthenware so as to provide this fragile produce, with high durability.
