Sarabehn, the Potter Woman

Tucked away in a corner of Western India, the peninsula of Kutch stretches as an extension of the Thar Desert into the Arabian Ocean-a stony steppe landscape covered with bramble and grass. Agriculture here is a one-season affair and consequently many families earn an additional income by manufacturing traditional utensils: Kutch is famous for its colourful handicrafts.
The road leads us over sand dunes, through dry river beds, past camel herds, till we reach Lodai-a small, dusty market town. There, in a courtyard surrounded by mud huts, we meet Sarabehn, a Muslim woman in her fifties. She quickly brings colourfully woven carpets from the house for us to sit on and invites us to relax with a cup of tea. She introduces her family: husband Ibrahim, three married daughters and their children. She then presents a threadbare photo album and we reminisce fondly about the Crafts Museum in distant New Delhi, the place where we met each other many months ago.

I want to know how work is progressing. "Well, we can't live on pottery alone," smiles Sarabehn with deep furrows on her face. "We do have a small piece of land, but the money just isn't enough to make ends meet. Everything here depends on the rain. If the rains are good, people earn well and come to us to buy new pots and pitchers. Recently even foreign tourists who like my work have been coming here."

Sarabehn paints pots, vessels and pitchers which Ibrahim makes on a hand-driven wheel. She draws geometrical patterns, stylises flowers, peacocks and human figures. Her black and the white paintings merge in rustic harmony with the brick-red of the clay. Sarabehn succeeds in imbuing items of everyday use with the austere beauty of her land. She is one of a hundred thousand unknown talents who nurture ancient traditional crafts in India's numerous villages. Sarabehn's work resembles the pottery that was excavated in the cities of the ancient Indus valley civilisation. Sarabehn is continuing a tradition that is 4000 years old.

Today Sarabehn has to compete against plastic buckets and metal plates which are now available in the market at Lodai. Fifty million artisans still live and work in India but industrialisation has already forced many to give up their craft and become helpless daily wagers. The government is trying to ensure a steady income for them through national agencies such as the Khadi and Village Industries Commission, but with limited success. In the financial year 1993/94, India earned Rs.18 billion or DM 1 billion through handicraft exports. Only a small fraction of this sum actually trickles down to the artisans themselves. Consequently many artisans are forming self-help groups and are independently organising the purchase of raw materials and the marketing of their products.