Against digital tide, 21-year-old turns to clay

Key Highlights

• A final-year student of commerce at Govt Degree College, Bemina, he has spent the past five years restoring Kashmir’s fading culture of clay utensils – once common in households but later replaced by steel, plastic and ceramic ware.
• He comes from no family of potters and inherited neither kiln nor craft.
• The decision was entirely his own.
• “I wanted to do something unique, something uncommon in Kashmir,” he says.
• “This clay art had almost vanished, so I decided to revive it.” Earthenware once held an important place in Kashmiri homes, but with changing lifestyles and modern materials, clay utensils gradually disappeared from kitchens.