Kosapet potters migrate due to lack of resources

A walk around the Kosapet, near Purusawalkam, during festivals like Pongal would be a visual treat as potter families would get-together to create pots of all sizes. But this year, as you enter the colony, it bears a deserted look. There is hardly any sign of activity. It is a struggle to find a single house that is engaged in making Pongal pots. After a rather intensive ‘search operation’ we came across a house that has a line of pots displayed outside. 

The Kuyavars (the potters’ community) of Kosapet have been engaged in the profession, which was their sole bread-winner, for generations. But over the last two decades, there has been a decline in the number of potters engaged in the business owing to the aging of the elders and the disinterest among the next generation in continuing the profession, owing to the spread of education. 

Balaji, a 30-year-old potter from the community and the only person selling pots in the area shares, “Most of my friends and their families, who I have grown up with have moved out of the area. Some of my friends have left the profession completely owing to meagre income. The remaining have moved to areas like Thiruverkaadu, Tiruvallur, Mambakkam, Periapalayam and Velappanchavadi. The high cost of water and dearth of fine clay here are the primary reasons for the migration.” 

Balaji shows a collection of pots that he has purchased from his kin in the above mentioned area. He is selling them for Rs 50 to 600, depending on their size. “This year has been specifically very bad for the community. Owing to the incessant rains, many of the pots prepared for Pongal were destroyed. There is also lack of fine clay for making them,” he adds. 

Balaji’s father Dhanasekaran, a potter in his 50s shows us a building fondly that used to be a pottery workshop. Now it houses a local private school. “Around festivals like Pongal and Vinayaga Chaturthi, this area was a bustling place as we used to supply pots and idols throughout Tamil Nadu and even to other states. The young and the old in a family would come together to create the pots. It was something to look forward to throughout the year,” he recalls. 

A Dinakaran, another member of a potter family in the Vinayakar Koil Street (known earlier as Kosa Theru), who works with a spiritual organisation now, said that 50 per cent of the members of the Kulalar families have migrated to other districts, other States and countries for jobs thanks to the increasing educational and job opportunities available to them.