The Clay Keeps Spinning, But Who's Watching?

In a narrow strip of Bangalore’s Benson Town, nestled next to a bustling highway construction project and even busier intersections, is Pottery Town, a quaint corner keeping artisanal pottery alive six generations down the line. Where red dust descends lazily on kiln-dried ground and generations of craftsmanship echo through the clang of wheels and the heady scent of the earth, a quieter crisis brews.

Pottery Town, one of the city’s few remaining bastions of traditional craft, is slipping away, lost to the trials and tribulations of being situated in a bustling metropolis, not due to a lack of craftsmanship or passion, but visibility, marketing, and financial abnegation.

Although the common man may be vaguely aware of the presence of this community, to a visitor, a newcomer, or even an ordinary Bangalorean who lives on the other side of town, Pottery Town is as good as invisible in plain sight.

“People are aware that we exist, but no one actually sees us, and booking jobs of teaching pottery classes or commissioned pieces is an up and downhill story, like in Covid, when business halted altogether,” says Ramya, a sixth-generation artisan whose forebears settled in the region from the Odisha-Tamil Nadu borderlands centuries ago.

“We once created ceramics for royal courts. As we went commercial with growing times, business didn’t grow along with us. We do commissions and even export abroad, but the opportunities are few and far between. Now, we just hope that someone buys enough to pay for rent this month,” Ramya tells us, reciting a tale from six generations below, her T-shirt flashing a hand-painted portrait of her mother-in-law, her artistry showing through even the threads of her fabric.

Ramya’s sentiments, it seems, are not unique at all—shared by every other artisan sitting in the nooks and crannies of the jungle of lanes. Without their cultural relevance and historic significance, Pottery Town craftsmen have two primary concerns: poor marketing and minimal financial assistance from government and private sources. When “local” and “handmade” are the design world’s buzzwords, it’s ironic that the same hands that created traditional Indian pottery are being overlooked.

Community Suffocating in a Metropolis

Our visit revealed a stark irony: neatly made diyas, terracotta lanterns, matkas, intricately made murtis, and garden pots sat idle under tin roofs, and above them, the cityscape was dotted with cranes and tall buildings. Ramya led us through her family workshop, a sunny, clay-soiled room alive with history. A story echoed around the area, irony almost—albeit haunting. The hands that have been trained decade after decade, that carry the spirit of Mother Earth, that can trick your very eyes by turning inanimate clay into something that seems to hold life itself—a magic of its own. They now struggle to find anyone who cares to pay attention above the simple novelty of the craft.

Ramya’s hands moved at warp speed as she chiseled symmetry out of raw earth. It was as if she was breathing life into mud itself. Glancing towards the left or right, Mr. Pradeep seemed to be working away at his own shack—so did Ms. Saumya, amidst the rows of people performing something akin to magic on the clays.

“We came to this place at the time of the Mysore Wodeyars,” she said. “Our forebears supplied provisions to the king’s kitchen and temples. It was a dignified calling, our work spoke for itself—that was our marketing. Now the most we can do is post pictures on Instagram and hope someone places an order, but even that can only go so far.”
Social media has given a glimpse of exposure, but without professional aid in branding, presentation, and shipping, its impact is limited. Most of the artisans in the area lack the monetary resources to come into a saturated online market and run their own personal branding campaigns.

“We can make a reel,” Ramya laughed. “But who will help us reach the people interested in these things? We don’t know much about hashtags.” When asked this question, almost all artisans seemed to agree—Mr. Pradeep stating how difficult it would even be to go viral should they figure out the ways of social media.

The Missing Hand of Support

Worse than the invisibility, though, is the virtual non-existence of financial support. While there have been isolated government proposals for small-scale artisans, says Ramya, they are filled with forms and lengthy procedures. They rarely make it to where they are supposed to be and typically lose their way in the red tape.

She shrugs, but her voice tightens, “We don’t want charity. Just access to money, to markets, to actual help, to people who still believe what we do makes a difference.”

With little institutional help, the families here scrape a living on sporadic sales—mostly at Diwali and Pongal—and the rest of the months drag on with declining demand: a commission from restaurants here, a pottery class there. Some have resorted to selling plastic pots or industrially made products to keep alive. Others have lost hope, their wheels collecting rust in sheds.

A Fading Craft in a Changing Economy

Pottery, formerly an obligatory domestic industry, teeters between kitsch and oblivion, caught in the limbo of an urbanizing economy. Practically no one in Bangalore cooks with clay or employs mud water filters anymore. It is just not feasible—not in the modern parts of the city, anyway.

It is but a cruel irony that an art surviving from six generations, and possibly even further back, is finally meeting its end in the 21st century, an era where exposure and the ability to go viral lie at our very fingertips.

Ramya believes that marketing could bridge this gap. “Why doesn’t the government include us in cultural tours?” she asks. “There are heritage walks for food, architecture, and temples. Why not pottery? We’ve been here longer than some of the most famous buildings here.”

Indeed, as Bangalore becomes a city of startups and innovation, its working-class potters—those who blend the traditional and sheer muscle memory with sleek modern-chic designs—are neglected. With more exposure, with perhaps an association with tourism or school initiatives, Pottery Town could thrive again. Design school partnerships, packaging support from marketing students, or even pop-up festivals could reap huge rewards.

Students, Schools, and New Hope?

Our own visit, as part of a student-led reporting project, was met warmly and gratefully.

“We’re glad you’re here,” Ramya told us. “At least someone is hearing us.”

And it struck us that the stories here aren’t just about economic struggle or media visibility, but about the pride of inherited tradition—the pride of being good at something because it’s simply in your genes. About the unobtrusive confidence in making something out of nothing. Pottery isn’t just a job here; it’s a lifeline on wheels.

The problems in Pottery Town aren’t unique, but they’re urgent. The more craftsmen that leave, the more is lost. Generational knowledge, unlike machines, doesn’t quietly sit on a shelf waiting to be rediscovered. It’s lost.

If Bangalore and India at large wish to preserve their cultural identity, it must begin by uplifting their makers. Policy must meet pavement. Marketing must meet the market. And young storytellers, like us, must keep writing—not just for academic submissions, but so the stories don’t get lost.

The clay is still soft. But it’s drying.

About Authors: Eshana Singh and Suhaan Banerjee are undergraduate students pursuing Media and Journalism at Christ (Deemed to be University), Bengaluru. Their interests lie in exploring underreported stories and bringing voices from the margins into the public eye. This report is part of a student-led field project focusing on cultural heritage and livelihoods.

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The Clay Keeps Spinning, But Who’s Watching?