All of us have seen with fascination the potter working on his wheel. The simple wheel spun around with a stick, and with the sure movement of his hands. The potter pours water over the cone of clay placed in the middle of the wheel and pulls it up. The circular momentum of the movements helps him to create a circular pot. Often with one movement he is able to build the pot. Slowly he shapes it with his hands. Then with a thread he separates it from the clay cone, lifts it gently as a child and places it on a plank in the shade to dry.
 This simple creative act creates clay pitchers rounded in form for storing water, which would be kept cool. Every village, every town, every important locality of a large city will have potters. They create pottery for different purposes. The large rounded spherical pots, gharas, for water storage, the long necked surahi for pouring the drinking water, the round bottomed with a broad width and narrow mouth cooking pot, handi, specially for dal, lentils, an essential part of our life, the clay flat griddle, tawa for making rotis, flat unleaved bread are even today an essential part of many homes. Not everyone has refrigerators and with hours of power failure, the cool water from a clay pitcher answers everyone's needs.
Each area has different styles of pottery. Each area has its own distinctive forms of water pitchers. Local traditions and the type of available clay influence the shapes and the decorative designs. The potter, Kumbhar, is an integral part of the life of the people. He creates not only pottery vessels but also images for worship during seasonal festivals. He also creates toys for children, and large terracotta figures, which are offered to deities to propitiate them, or to beseech them for a boon.
The very fine paper-thin pottery produced in Alwar, Rajasthan was known as Kagzi, paper-like. Alwar has a few craftsmen even today who produce this variety. Excavations at Purana Qila, Delhi, brought to light a variety of medieval creations in which this type of paper-thin pottery has been uncovered. There appear to be three distinct styles in this pottery: the first variety is the paper-thin, biscuit-colored pottery styles. The second variety is more sophisticated in character. It is polished and painted with white and red slips into intricate patterns while the outline is incised. This technique known as scrafito, reveals the ground color. The third variety is unique in its treatment. In this, a very fine and highly polished pottery is given strong , deeply incised, stylized patterns of arabesques. The remaining area is covered with rows and black dots. The contrast in color and texture brings the incised area into greater prominence.
Objects for domestic use have certain well-known centers: Kangra, Andreta in Himanchal Pradesh, Jhahhar in Haryana, Pokhran in Rajasthan, Meerut and Hapur in U.P., Khanpur in Maharashtra, Kutch in Gujrat, Birbhum in Bengal and Manipur for their distinctive styles of pottery.
 Andreta creates a variety of forms in black pottery for domestic use. The dishes and containers, as well as the lamps with stands are reminiscent in form and decoration of the old Harappan pottery.
Pokhran has stylized forms with incised decorative patters, which are distinctive. They are extremely interesting traditional forms. The spherical bottles with narrow mouths, used as oil-containers. Lotas with long spouts meant for pouring oil, and round spherical bottles with narrow mouths, which can be closed by pottery plugs and which are slung around the shoulder by the cameliers as they ride out into the desert.
Khanpur makes thin pottery with stamped and incised designs in various sizes. It also makes large jars by beating the wheel-thrown rough forms into large containers.
Meerut and Jhajjar make slim-necked water-containers known as surahis, which are half turned and half moulded and have a variety of patterns of rosettes and flowing designs, with gargoyle heads for spouts. Many of them are sold in the cities for their excellent cooling properties.
South Gujrat has very fine potters, who creates a range of pots and also ritual objects such as terracotta horse, elephants and dome-like resting places for their ancestral spirit. The animal forms are created by combining a series of pots; long cylindrical pots form the legs, a larger pot makes up the body, and the neck and head are separate pots. These are put together and a coiled tail, shaped ears and other elements are attached to form the whole. The effect is of a strong sculpturesque animal form.
Kutch also has excellent potters who create a range of pots for different functions of life. There are special pots for worship during the ceremony of initiation, marriage and death, prepared by the potter for all communities, irrespective of caste or creed.
Another special variety, which was developed in Kutch, and which is now found only in Nizamabad in Azamgarh district of Uttar Pradesh, is the black pottery, with the patterns worked in silver. The speciality of this type of pottery is that it has a highly polished lustrous black surface, which is incised and filled in with silver colour. To get the glowing black glazed effect, the pottery is dipped into a slip made of clay, mixed with vegetable matter. After this the dried pottery is polished with a vegetable matter, when fired, creates a black oxide, which gives the glowing black polished surface. It is then incised and mercury is rubbed into the incised sections, creativing silvery patterns. The effect is very similar to the Bider work of Andhra Pradesh, where oxidized gunmetal is inlaid with silver wire. According to local tradition, the families of potters were brought from Kutch during the time of Aurangzeb and settled in Nizamabad.
Glazed pottery has only a few centres of production. The tradition of glazed pottery probably began under Arab influence, for it was first developed in Multan, an area which came under district Arab influence by conquest and settlement in the eight century. The glazed pottery with the white background and blue and green patterns was developed here and it then spread to other parts of India. Delhi, Amritsar in the Punjab, Jaipur in Rajasthan, Khurja, Chunar and Rampur in Uttar Pradesh, and Karigari in Tamil Nadu developed this style of pottery.
Delhi, Khurja and Jaipur produce the well-known blue pottery. Traditionally, this form of pottery did not involve the use of clay. The basic shapes were made of ground quartz mixed with glue. Forms were created by the use of moulds. Later, they were coloured a turquoise blue, either by dipping them into copper oxide made from copper scraps or by painting them on the surface. The pottery was than covered with finely ground glass and fired. Since clay was not used, the pottery did not crack and was therefore considered hygienic for use as eating vessels.
Jaipur and Delhi still remain this technique, while Khurja and Rampur prepare the base from red clay and then fire it. Cooking utensils with simple designs are made in Meerut also. Here the red pottery shapes are brought from the potters by the kashigars, who decorate them with painted patterns and then glaze the surface and fire the pottery.
Jaipur Blue pottery had nearly been lost when Kamaladevi persuaded a muralist and painter Kirpal Singh Shekhawat to head a school sponsored by Gayatri devi in 960 and financed by All India Handicrafts Board, a government organization, for the development of crafts. Kirpal Singh not only revived the art, but mastered it himself and became famous. In the beginning his Rajput family were very unhappy that Kirpal Singh would lose his casts and be disowned by his community. But his fame spread far and wide and he traveled the world to bring humour to his people. In the recent recognition by the President of India, Kirpal Singh was given the title of Shilp Guru, the living treasures of our country.
Chunar developed another form of pottery. Here the raised designs made on surahis were adapted for glazed pottery. The raised forms were given a slip of brown glaze and sections were then coloured blue, yellow and green, giving the effect of meenakari. The art of introducing different colors has now been lost in Chunar; only a brown slip is given to the finished pottery pieces.
Karigari in Tamil Nadu developed yet another style of pottery. Here biscuitware was created with incised patterns and given a blue or green glaze. This developed a distinctive style.
In 960 research initiated in glazes and different clay bodies by the development centres of the handicraft organizations let to manufacture of glazed pottery at a number of places in India. A number of studio potters have come in Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi and Pondicherry. These have influenced quite a few production centres into producing glazed pottery for local consumption as well as for export. Large production centres in Pondicherry, Kolkata, Mumbai and Delhi meet the needs of the well to do and the artist community for handmade pottery.
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