Srinagar youth strives to revive Kashmir’s ‘dying’ glazed pottery art

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Mohammad Umar Kumar, a 26-year-old commerce graduate, attempted to revive the age-old but ‘dying’ art of glazed pottery in Kashmir after learning it from an octogenarian, who he claims is the only person alive to know the art.

Kumar has also involved his family in the craft and teaches the skill to the youth in a bid to keep it from waning into obscurity.

Glazed pottery, known as Dal Gate pottery, is unique to Kashmir, Kumar said.

Originally, glazed tiles in deep green, blue, brown and ochre were made in the valley.

This craft later got bifurcated to tableware and vases made in red, green and blue glazes.

Once famous and sought-after, this art, like many other art forms in Kashmir, is slowly dying as not many from the new generation in the valley are willing to ‘get their hands dirty’.

“We have been involved in pottery, but I took this art just to revive it. This art was there 70 years ago but it has almost died in Kashmir,” Kumar told PTI. (India Blooms)