21st February, 2022

Author: Preeti Sharma (Content Writer)

Saima Shafi known for her pottery profession not only in Kashmir but in India as well. Pottery has historically been the realm of the one society and that provoked people anger when Saima chose to start a career as a potter. She wanted to break this shield of Gender and Caste from Art. Saima is a victim of domestic abuse. Born in Downtown of Kashmir valley. Saima was attracted towards various arts. Other than extracurricular activities she was a brilliant student and won many prizes and awards. She did BE in civil Engineering from Kashmir University and MBA from Punjab University Chandigarh in 2012. While pursuing MBA she got appointed as a Junior Engineer in PWD.

Once she visited the village of Potters. She was amazed to see such a huge platform for pottery. She has seen pottery work here in Kashmir before, but not of this grand level. She was fascinated towards pottery and bought one of the pots from potters. The second chance when pottery met Saima, it was a fest at Punjab University and various arts were displayed by artists, there was a potter invited there, he had his wheel and was giving chance to people to make something on the wheel. It was a fun activity for others, but for Saima it was a connection she made with pottery here and ended up making a small vase and the potter too complimented her about the efforts and gave a hint that she can do something in pottery. After coming from the trip, she was occupied in her life, but also manages to create something either from waste material or any other art work.

In 2017, Saima got married and started the new phase of life happily. After marriage, the happiness turned the other way round and the harsh reality hits her with the fact that she had an ectopic pregnancy and started a lot of atrocities, mental trauma and domestic violence. Further that everything started and the acceptance level was shrinking changing during that time. She was force to comprise and adjust with all this happening in life. One more harsh reality hit her again when her husband gave her Triple Talaq. After hearing this, she was so broken met scholars of her community, but since there was no law for triple Talaq during that time in India, no body helped her and she landed up in severe depression and tried to seek psychiatric help where she was prescribed high dosage of anti depressants. People started treating her like soiled and started maintaining distance as being a divorcee is considered to be a taboo, but there were some seemingly good people too who always sympathized and never empathized which added more to the agony. This pushed me more into the depression. During this phase it was her family who always stood by her side.

After facing challenges, Saima finally decided to indulge herself into things which give her inner peace. In December 2018, she made her mind to do something in Art and started searching locally. Saima strongly believes in “God helps those who help themselves.” Keeping this thought she took her first step towards Pottery and moved to Bangalore for a month to learn Pottery and surprisingly it gave her immense satisfaction and she rediscovered the Pottery in Kashmir with this new technique and forms but unfortunately it was a taboo impactful that the women cannot do the pottery. This realization gave her a strong conviction to break the faulty convention where a woman doing pottery. She decided to give a message that the women are capable of doing anything and started visiting the places that were once famous for pottery in Kashmir like Gauf Kral, Charar Sharief, Ishbar etc, she found that this skill, which is part of Kashmir's rich cultural heritage was gazed upon. People associated with it were not given a respectable place in society, which tends to result in the potters surrendering and fallen to discrimination. Saima connect to potters and developed empathy for them, discovering that the pottery and she were sailing in the same boat.

She took pottery in Kashmir and respect for the families who belong to the potter community. To break the stereotype Saima named herself as Kralkoor, a Kashmiri word that means a Potter Girl and established the first modern pottery studio named “Kralkoor Pottery Studio” with all the updated equipments that could take pottery of Kashmir to another level and giving this name was a token of love and empathy towards all the girls who belong to the potter community of Valley. This was how Kralkoor came into being.

As a domestic violence survivor. She chose to be open on social media to glamorize the pottery which is at the verge of extinction. There are women like her who suffer silently to the domestic violence and can’t be vocal about the problems they face and bury their talents and art. She got a lot of backlash as well for this step to talks about the issues that are pre-existing and no one wants to talk about. These backlashes don’t affect her anymore because raised voice to many women who had been suffering for years. It is always hard to stand up for the rights, although no matter how difficult it becomes, keep walking and avoid the noises that try to stop you. The journey will definitely be tiring but it will lead you to your desired destination, gather your strength, because your passion is your destination.