Song of the Clay Pot: Demystifying and celebrating the ghatam

Ghatam player, researcher, writer and author of the book ‘Song of the Clay Pot’ Sumana Chandrashekar said here on Sunday that just by virtue of being a ghatam player, life has taken several different journeys, ups and downs and she has completely transformed.

In conversation with independent journalist and arts entrepreneur Akhila Krishnamurthy, Ms. Chandrashekar said, “I’m not the musician I used to be 15 years ago. I entirely owe it to my training of the instrument. It has done something and there is a certain coming of age. A lot of things have opened up for me because I played this instrument.”

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Ms. Krishnamurthy said the book celebrates the history of ghatam, traces its geography, highlights some crucial social political norms the instrument has to navigate and spotlights the problems of patriarchy and hierarchy which is contained within and around this instrument.

When asked if non-practitioners of music should engage with this book, Ms. Chandrashekar, said, she didn’t have only music practitioners in mind when she wrote the book. “In the context of India, the metaphor of a pot is something that all of us invisibly understand. It is there in the streets and our kitchens, and we play with it. My idea was not to reduce the pot just in the context of music. However, I’m telling the story of a musical pot, and this is one among the hundreds of musical pots that exist in India. I wanted to see how all of us here connect with the pot. In doing so, I’m giving voice to the story of ghatam. This book or story is not just about a ghatam only and it is for everybody. It is the story of the making, breaking and everything about the pot,” she said.

With a lot of instruments, there is one dominant hand playing and another one supporting, she said. “But with ghatam, what you do with your right, you do with your left too. This to me is a very profound thing. What ghatam learning has done to me is to realise the potential of both parts of my body,” she added.

Ms. Chandrashekar spoke about how going through COVID also transformed her body dramatically. For nearly a year, she couldn’t lift her ghatam. “Initially, the fear was that will I be able to play again? Every day, I would journal what my body was going through,” she said.

While it took time, to be able to reconnect with the ghatam became so important and it became a totally different journey. “It is almost like going through an entire circle again. But it was very fascinating. When you know, you don’t have to reach somewhere but you are just enjoying the journey,” she added. 

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