By Ruta Patil

As the festive glow of Diwali begins to warm every corner of Pune , the soft, earthy flame of the city’s potters is dimming. In Khumbharwada, potters across Pune, who once molded earth into beauty, now find themselves struggling against the depletion of the very soil that sustains their art.

“There was a time when we would get soil from Wagholi, Wadgaon Budruk, and Nagar Road. Now we have to travel nearly 300 kilometers to find good clay,” says Prabhakar Shinde, practicing the art for five decades. “At first, soil used to be free. Now it costs us Rs 40,000 a truckload. Even after all this hard work, there’s barely any profit left.”

The actual making of the pots and diyas happens in Mundhwa, where the remaining potters work in small workshops surrounded by spinning wheels

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