1. Sentila dreams of becoming a pot maker like her mother and grandmother. But her mother Arenla wants her to become a weaver.
2. Whenever her parents go to the fields, Sentila secretly visits expert potters to watch and learn. They are amused and think she will outgrow her passion.
3. One night she overhears her mother explaining why she will not teach her: the clay is 16 km away, the load is back-breaking, pounding is tedious, and months of labour bring only a few rupees.
4. Weaving, her mother says, is clean, can be done indoors in all seasons, takes less time and pays much better.
5. So Sentila hides her love for pot making at home, but keeps visiting the potters.
6. Her visits become village gossip. People fear that if potters stop teaching, there will be no expert potters left.
7. The village council summons her father Mesoba. He humbly says Arenla will teach her — they only wanted her to grow stronger after her illness.
8. The elders warn him that such a skill is handed down from generation to generation, does not belong to any one person, and must be passed on to anyone who wishes to learn.
9. The next year Arenla finally takes Sentila to the riverbank and teaches her to dig, carry, soak and pound the clay. Sentila learns this quickly.
10. But she cannot shape the lump into a pot. For almost a year she fails, while her mother silently watches and then takes over.
11. Sentila is sent to the girls’ dormitory, looked after by Onula. Onula secretly watches her struggle and sees that she is too tense.
12. Onula teaches her kindly. With new confidence Sentila makes a beautiful pot — but Onula points out that the mouth of the pot is wrong, and tells her to watch her mother carefully.
13. Sentila observes her mother closely and learns the secret of shaping the rim.
14. One sunny day Arenla finishes a batch, complains of a headache and backache, and asks Sentila to carry on alone.
15. Sentila makes pot after pot with speed and dexterity — just one less than her mother’s count.
16. She goes in for lunch and finds her mother lying at the threshold, not breathing.
17. At the funeral Sentila cries out that she never wished it to happen this way — the skill simply came to her. Only Onula understands.
18. Onula peeps into the work shed and sees two rows of pots that look exactly alike. She realises what has happened. A new pot maker was born.

Sentila

• Passionate — dreams of pottery from childhood.
• Determined — keeps trying for years despite failing.
• Observant — learns by carefully watching others.
• Obedient yet firm — never disobeys openly, but never gives up either.

Arenla (mother)

• Practical — wants weaving because it pays better and is less painful.
• Hard-working — an expert potter who suffers for her craft.
• Silent but loving — in the end she passes the skill on without a word.

Onula (Aunty)

• Kind and generous — helps a girl who is not her own child.
• A true teacher — spots the real problem (Sentila’s tension) and fixes it.
• Sensitive — the only one who understands what happened at the end.

Mesoba (father)

• Humble and calm — answers the village council politely and protects his wife.

1. Dig the grey and red clay at the riverbank with a dao.
2. Carry it uphill in a basket — the riverbank is sixteen kilometres away.
3. Soak the clay in a trough in the work shed.
4. Pound it inside bamboo cylinders until it becomes malleable dough.
5. Shape it — push the left hand into the lump, rotate it, and give it form with a spatula in the right hand.
6. Make the rim by adding a strip of long dough at the mouth, slackening the rhythm.
7. Touch up after two or three days to keep the shape and test the consistency.
8. Dry the pots in the sun.
9. Fire them in a kiln on a bed of hay and dried bamboo, covered with the same materials.
10. Tend the fire carefully — over-firing or under-firing ruins the whole batch.

• Passion vs practicality — Sentila follows her heart; her mother thinks of money.
• Perseverance — years of failure do not stop her.
• A craft belongs to the community — the elders say tradition is not one person’s property.
• The value of a good teacher — Onula’s few words do what a year of lessons could not.
• Silent love of a mother — Arenla says nothing, but hands over her skill in the end.
• Dignity of handmade work — pot making is hard and poorly paid, yet it carries a people’s history.

The closing line. Sentila is not just skilled now — she has become a pot maker in the true sense, and the village tradition will live on.

The elders’ message: a craft is shared wealth. Experts must teach anyone willing to learn, not only their own children.

Sentila feels her sudden skill and her mother’s death are connected — as if the gift was handed over at the cost of a life.

Onula’s gentle promise. It shows how much confidence a kind teacher can give.

A supplementary story given in this unit, about the same idea — the value of handmade work.

Story in short

• Mr Gessler, a German bootmaker, runs a small shop in London with his elder brother.
• He makes boots only to order, uses the best leather, and his boots never fail to fit.
• He calls his work an art. His boots last so long that customers rarely need to return.
• Once the narrator wears boots from a big firm. Gessler notices at once and says those big firms have no self-respect — they win trade by advertisement, not by work.
• His elder brother dies. Gessler grows old, thin and worn, and loses customers because he is slow.
• The narrator orders many pairs; they are the best boots Gessler ever made.
• A week later the shop has a new owner. Gessler is dead — of slow starvation. He never gave himself time to eat and spent everything on rent and leather.
• The story ends simply: “he made good boots.”

Summary

The poet says he hears Bharat celebrating through its many vocations. He names them one by one: craftspersons weaving colours and myriad hues; artisans with lutes whose music echoes emotions in the streets; carpenters shaping wood with mathematical precision; electricians working with cables and wires to brighten our lives.

Then come the boatmen who gather their nets, sail and sing, and return with tales of the sea; the shoemakers who stand by the quality of their work, for feet that walk, dance, run, jump and return home; and the cook, the designer and the mason, each celebrating what belongs to them alone. The poem ends by returning to its opening line.

Words worth knowing

A short poem given at the end of the unit.

• A child waits at tea-time, after sunset, to watch Leerie the lamplighter pass by with his lantern and ladder.
• Tom will become a driver, Maria will go to sea, and the child’s father is a rich banker.
• But the child wants none of that — when he grows stronger he wants to go round at night lighting lamps with Leerie.
• He feels lucky to have a lamp before his door, and asks Leerie to look at him and nod tonight.

• Story: The Pot Maker by Temsula Ao (Nagaland)
• Sentila → wants pottery  |  Arenla → wants her to weave
• Reason: clay is 16 km away, work is tedious, pay is a pittance
• Village council warns Mesoba: a craft belongs to everyone, not one family
• Sentila fails for a year → Onula teaches her → she watches her mother’s hands
• Alone, she makes pots one short of her mother’s tally — and finds her mother dead
• Two identical rows of pots → “A new pot maker was born.”
• Supplementary: Quality by Galsworthy — Mr Gessler dies of slow starvation, but “he made good boots”
• Poem: Gifts of Grace — free verse; refrain “I hear Bharat celebrating…”
• Poem’s key line: The voice of their vocation is the voice of their identity.