Kumartuli

Kumartuli is a warren of lanes where potter families have made clay images for around three hundred years, and the work follows a fixed method: a frame of bamboo and straw is bound, layered with clay from the Hooghly, dried, refined, painted and finally given eyes in a rite performed on a particular day. The images, principally of Durga for the autumn festival, range from a metre to several storeys, and thousands leave the quarter each September and October for pandals across the city and abroad. After the festival they are immersed in the river and the clay returns to it, so the whole cycle is annual and nothing is kept.

History

After the East India Company built the new Fort William on the site of Gobindapur village, much of the local population moved to Sutanuti, and the Company official Holwell allotted separate districts to its workmen, which took names from their trades, among them the potters' quarter of Kumortuli. In the late nineteenth century most of the artisans of North Kolkata were pushed out by traders from Burrabazar, but the potters, who took their clay from the river beside their homes, stayed, and in 1888 one of the city's 25 new police section houses was placed in Kumartuli (Wikipedia, Kumortuli).

What's there

• The straw and bamboo frames - armatures before the clay is applied.
• The clay layers - river clay built up, dried and refined into form.
• The painting stage - finishing and the ritual painting of the eyes.
• The lanes - workshops open to the street through the whole quarter.

When to go

August to October, when the workshops are at full work before Durga Puja; the eye-painting rite falls on Mahalaya. Outside that season the quarter is much quieter with fewer pieces in progress.

Things to know

These are working studios in narrow lanes, not a display; artisans are under deadline pressure and photography should be asked for. Lanes are cramped, muddy and hard to move through in season.

Nearby

Sovabazar lies south; the Hooghly is west.