Rajesh/Faridabad
As a child growing up in Khurja town Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh, Firoz would use clay and mud to make toys. When it was time for him to choose a profession, he didn’t have to think much. Today, at 45, Firoze is a successful businessman in pottery.
Firoz had learned the art of porcelain at his home. History has it that it was during the reign of King Firoz Shah Tughlaq in Khurja the manufacture of traditional pottery had started and over the years ‘Kurja pottery’ has become a brand and it resembled the blue pottery of Persia.
Kurja has about 350 units that generate thousands of jobs and contribute to the local economy.
After training Firoz became an excellent craftsman. In the Surajkund handicrafts fair, his brothers Amir and Sufiyan have set up a stall that is attracting crowds. Firoze was around the stall, apparently to see the preferences of the buyers and accordingly create new products.
Sufiyan told Awaz-the Voice that he had got inspired to learn this from his elder brother Firoz. He would just watch him make fancy items and artifacts and initially he helped him. He saw that his brother’s products were not only selling in Uttar Pradesh but also in different parts of the country.
The brothers have been exhibiting and selling their products in various trade and craft fairs across the country for the last several years.
Sufiyan said the three brothers together first prepare porcelain utensils, pots, mugs, and various types of fancy items and showpieces with their hands. Thereafter they sit and paint them with porcelain colors. He said all the pottery is handmade. At present, different types of items ranging from Rs 250 to Rs 600 are available at his stall. The visitors coming to the fair do not only like his stuff and his products are selling like hotcakes.
The art of pottery is as old as human civilization. All the potters shape things on a traditional potters wheel that is run on electricity these days. These are sundried and then heated to a high temperature in a furnace. The makes the object dehydrated and hard.
The clay of Bulandshahr is a type of porcelain and therefore this art had flourished there
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