Inside The World Of Dharavi’s Diya-Makers

Inside The World Of Dharavi’s Diya-Makers

63-year-old Ranchod Bhai does not remember when his father migrated to Mumbai from their village in Gujarat. He, however, does remember spending hours with him every day, getting his hands dirty and learning to shape the perfect diya on his potter’s wheel. Dropping out of school after the eighth grade, making diyas is what Ranchod Bhai has done for the last 50 years. And as he proudly puts it – he would not have it any other way.

But being the master craftsman that he is, Ranchod Bhai has had some serious competition. He is only one of the 800 odd diya-makers who reside in Dharavi’s Kumbharwada (that literally translates to ‘potter’s colony’). Situated on the 90-foot road, this area is perhaps the only part of the public shanty where narrow bylanes, dotted with colourful houses, open up to large compounds. Here, around the makeshift kilns lie freshly baked earthen pots and diyas of various shapes and sizes. Made by the local Kumbhars of Dharavi in their tiny one-room houses, these diyas light up nights in various parts of the country.

I arrive here on a warm, sunny afternoon to observe the artists at work myself. The air is heavy with the smoke from the furnace and is coupled with the nonchalant Gujarati that falls upon my ears. The sound of the traffic and the bustle of the city seems faint as I enter into what seems like an artisan village of sorts. The men sit at their doors working on their potter’s wheels. The women have completed their daily chores and are assisting their husbands. The children have been dropped off to schools and the grandmothers are just finishing up their morning prayers. Some shops have been set-up, the buyers have started to arrive. Negotiations have begun. It seems like a busy day ahead for Dharavi’s diya-makers. They have a lot to get done with, before the festival of lights.

The Diya market at dharavi.

But Ranchod Bhai seems to be taking a break. He is sitting outside his tiny one-room house in a white vest and grey pants basking in the afternoon’s glory. His slim-wrinkled fingers and crooked nails still show traces of the wet red mud. “I have been making diyas since the last 5 hours. I am old now. I can’t work continuously as I did in my youth days. I have hired a kaarigar who makes the diyas with my sons, while my daughters-in-law paint and package them,” he says pointing to two women wearing vibrant yellow and green saris standing outside the kiln and counting diyas.

While I am amazed at their meticulous counting – there must be thousands of them in that kiln - I understand that this art too has assigned gender roles. While the men in the house mould and make diyas on the potter’s wheel, the women are expected to paint and decorate, after they are done counting them.

This is what Ramila Bhen and Anita Bhen are also doing, three houses away from Ranchod Bhai’s. Sitting amidst hundreds of diyas of various colours, Ramila and Anita are lost in conversation. But this does not deter their work. Their hands move mechanically. While Ramila Bhen uses gentle strokes of her thick brush to paint diyas in reds, blues and greens, Ramila decorates them with mirrors, ribbons and embroidery. She also sticks some diyas together to give it beautiful shapes and packages them in various sets.

Waiting for customers.

Working every day for almost 12 hours, she tells me that she comes down from Kalyan and stays in Dharavi for a month during every festive season to assist her sister with the painting. Not only do they work on the diyas prepared by their husbands, but also take orders and consignments from private companies and Kumbharwadas in other parts of the state who pay for their raw material. While Anita loves to paint and boasts of her artistic streak, Ramila can’t do the same. “I do it because this is all I was ever expected to do since childhood. With no other skills or education, this is my fate,” she states.

But Daksha Bhen, a 30-something woman believes that everyone writes their own fate. She claims to have done the same by disrupting traditional gender roles in Kumbharwada and starting her own shop that sells not just diyas but also lanterns and sweets. Living in a joint family of Kumbhars, where her father and uncle make pots and diyas and mother and aunty paint them – she looks after the business of selling them and has been at it for four years. The Kumbhars of Dharavi do not work under anyone. They have a union but everyone works individually and they seldom take orders, relying mostly on sales from retail and wholesale deals with contacts they have made over the years. I see Daksha squabble with them confidently at her shop set under a pandal, trying to get the ‘right’ price for the manual labour and the hard work that has gone into the making of them.

Ramila Bhen at work.

She isn’t the only one. A few twists and turns ahead in the Kumbharwada of Kutchi Jamadkhana which houses migrant potters of Kutch, diyas are being sold and auctioned like fish. Abdul Rehman, a diya-maker and seller tells me that the wholesale price of each diya is INR 2, whereas, for the big one, it is INR 5. Each Kumbhar in the community works for almost 10-12 hours a day makes anywhere around 2000-2500 diyas during Diwali time as the demand is unusually high.

The reason behind the high demand of diyas made in Dharavi’s Kumbharwada is to do with its traditional making. 42-year-old Singhania, who has been making pots and clays since he was ten, explains the process to me, saying, “We use indigenous red clay imported from the Western Ghats of Gujarat and Maharashtra. After the mud is brought, it is used to mould diyas in various shapes and sizes over the potter’s wheel. Once our hand sets on the wheels, it hardly takes us seconds to mould one diya. After a set of about 1500 is made, we bake them in traditional kilns constructed right outside the potter’s house. These kilns are hated using cardboards and waste found in Dharavi. Once ready they are manually counted and sent off to get painted and packaged. We then sell them.”

The traditional process makes the diyas sturdier and more lucrative to buyers but comes with its own set of challenges. I am observing Prem Bhai, Daksha’s father mould one diya after the other with such speed and precision while he tells me that the continuous smoke from the kiln has given him and many other Kumbhars a serious breathing problem. “Our fingers also get numb and soggy after being in the mud all day long. But what to do?” he exclaims. Moreover, given the continuous influx of migrants, the space they have for themselves is shrinking. They have to not just work in the close proximity of a furnace but sleep amidst the diyas and the pots that remain sprawled in the room which has essentially become their workshop.

Prem Bhai's hands working magic.

But Prem Bhai and others have solved this problem to an extent. By constructing a panel in the middle, connected by a ladder, they have managed to divide the house in half and separate their workspace and living space. It is quite interesting to see their artistic creativity translate into their houses just as it is to see their Gujarati identity seamlessly mixing with their Dharavi one. The potters of Saurashtra in Gujarat were perhaps the first migrants into the city, who came to Mumbai in search of better opportunities way back in the 1880’s. They first settled in South Mumbai but were forcefully sent to stay at Dharavi, which was then the edge of the city by British officials who were apparently irritated by the constant influx of migrants. These Gujarati Kumbhars were amongst the early settlers in Dharavi along with the Kolis of Konkan and their culture thrives till date. It is evident not just through their art, but also through their overtly colourful houses, their witty business acumen, their fluent language and especially the women’s style of draping the saree.

Interestingly, most of these people have never even been to Gujarat and have spent their entire lives in Dharavi. They are well aware of the trials and tribulations of surviving in Bombay. But no matter how interesting their cultural identity is, they define themselves by their profession. They are the Kumbhars and that is their basic identity.

But the question that everybody is faced with is that how long will this identity sustain itself, given that the younger generation does not want to take the legacy of the Kumbhars ahead. “If they can be doctors or lawyers, why should they break their backs and get their hands dirty,” says Sulekha, who is carrying a basket full of diyas over her head to the market on the main road. She tells me that her 20-year-old son is about to give his B.Com exams soon and plans to work in a bank. Her friend Iru Bhen who is intently listening to our conversation too resonates with her thoughts. She tells me that she came to Dharavi 12-years-ago from Kathwada in Gujarat after marrying a potter here. When asked, which life she prefers, Iru Bhen, without giving it a thought says, “Here, I am able to send my children to an English Medium school. There are better opportunities here for them. I want my daughter to study and not get stuck painting diyas like me.”

Daksha, the businesswoman.

Interestingly, this hesitation is not because this art/profession is a dying one. It is not. Even in the age of machine-made ceramic pots and diyas, these handmade ones are still a hit. “It is cheaper. Moreover, nothing can replace the charm of handmade diyas. This is why the demand today is still the same as it was when I first started working,” Ranchod Bhai tells me. Hasmukh Jethva another potter in the vicinity agrees with him. He tells me that their work fetches them a decent amount of money and a better lifestyle compared to most other communities in Dharavi. In fact, my local taxi driver while on my way back home tells me that Kumbharwada is one of the richest industries in Dharavi and the community is well-off.

I guess it is all about new opportunities – the same way these Kumbhar’s forefathers took up their chance at change when they migrated from Gujarat to Mumbai, in search of a better life. Perhaps the younger generation wants to do the same. That’s for us to find out in the near future. But, as of now, the Kumbharwada thrives with its business. It is Diwali time after all and the flicker of passion and light within them needs to continue burning.

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