Bengaluru, 22 Jan

Winters are usually a hard time for families at Pottery Town in Benson Town here as pots take longer time to dry and there are hardly any customers to drop by. But in this cold season, fortunes are changing for 40-odd families at the Pottery Town, thanks to the growing number of social media influencers who drop by to try their hands at pottery making.

While the influencers on Instagram and YouTube are looking to offer new content for their followers, the potters have a new business plan to bank on. The potters charge around Rs 400 per hour from these content creators to try their hand at pottery making and take their small and precious creations back home. “At least five to six people visit a potter every week and this has become a significant part of our monthly income,” Balaraju, a second-generation potter, told Salar News.

Adding to this new source of income are vendors of Tandoori Chai (tea poured into clay mugs and smoked to give a delicious twist). These Tandoori Chai vendors, who buy each glass at a rate of Rs 5, are a regular clientele of potters. With around 20 kilograms of clay, about 150 Tandoori Chai glasses with each having a capacity of 90 ml can be produced, a potter named Lakshmi said.

These Tandoori Chai vendors come every week and place orders of up to 30,000 clay glasses from one potter, resulting in the town producing more than 1 lakh Chai glasses every month. “Almost every week, we get bulk orders from them (chai vendors). Each potter from this town has their own Chai vendors. These people cannot order from elsewhere either as everyone has their own customers,” Lakshmi said.

Recently, the potters received an order for 28,000 diyas from Sri Ram Sene Trust which was used during the consecration of Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

The potters in the over 100-year-old town produce diverse products including incense stick holders, jugs, vessels and diyas.

The roots of these potters can be traced back to Mysuru, with the Wodeyars royal family in Mysuru allocating Pottery Town in Benson Town for the production of clay lamps and vessels. —Salar News