INSPIRED! BRICK MAKING IN MALUR
INSPIRED! BRICK MAKING IN MALUR
About an hour away from Bengaluru, the highway curves to the right. On either sides are vegetable and ragi fields and eucalyptus plantations. It is not quite away from civilization, but scenic enough to tell us we are well out of the city.
And then they begin – tall reddish towers, dotting the landscape. Some have smoke spewing out of them; some don’t.
These are the chimneys of the iconic brick kilns of Malur taluk, in Kolar district, Karnataka. This right here is said to be the largest hub of downdraft kilns in the country! On closer look, one can see mounds and mounds of bricks, cooling around the kiln. On the other side are brick workers working at record speed, casting clay into moulds and turning them out to dry.
The Malur taluk region is traditionally known to be rich in good quality clay. However, bricks were not manufactured here till the 1970s. What we learned is that “there were very few tile factories here in the 1970s and these were run by people from the potters’ community. However, with an increase in demand for bricks, people from all communities, including farmers, opened factories.”
Today, there are over 300 factories in the area that have become a mainstay of the economy of the region. You can find migrants from as far away as Bihar and Chhattisgarh, and from other parts of south India, at work in the brick factories and the terracotta outlets that dot the roads.
Looking back at our work with Kattoos, this landscape was perhaps one of the many inspirational catalysts for our miniature terracotta bricks. The traditional knowhow of creating and handling terracotta has stood us in good stead, and going forward, we hope to contribute to the region’s economy in a miniature way.
Know more at:
http://sameeeksha.org/pdf/clusterprofile/Malur-brick-kilns-Karnataka.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJXPWr2mVVA&ab_channel=BackyardGardening
ON A LIGHTER SIDE…
(whisper whisper) This is Prem’s version of events. What do you think happened next? He says…
We had loads of laughs creating this cheesy love story… now its your turn to continue it.
What do you think happened to Prem and Preethi next?
Send in your ideas at selena@headstreams.org and the best entry will be published here!
BUILDING BRIDGES BRICK BY BRICK
When we embarked on this journey, we were not sure what to expect. We were just excited and curious, full of purpose and hope, brimming with energy for what could be possible.
Creation is an act of facilitating emergence, is it not? We plan one thing, but quite another – or many “anothers” – happen. Over the last 1.5 years, our “anothers” have given us a glimpse of the possibilities resting within our brand, Kattoos.
Kattoos comes from the Kannada word “kattu” which means “to build”, “to make” or “to construct”. This little word holds together our ambition to catalyse building connections, making ties, and binding together that which is disconnected, severed and fragmented in our collective realities. We seek through this venture, to build bridges brick by brick, across differences.
We believe this is possible only when diverse conceptualisations and systems of organising, of people, material and actions, bind together in new innovative ways. For us play facilitators, the experience that best resonates this is creating new structures with open-ended resources like clay, sticks, and mud. In our eyes, each of us are craftspeople, piecing together the resources we have, to create new combinations, new constructions, new realities.
True enough, we are now witnessing the slow evolution of bridges – some we had hoped for, and others that have taken us by surprise. The bridge between the past and the future, the bridge between the heart, mind and body, the bridge across urban and rural divide, bridges across class and caste, the bridge between business and social reconstruction… and so many more.
So at its core, our Kattoos journey is the unfolding of the art of building bridges. And we are truly awed and deeply grateful to be witness to it. This blog is an attempt to share with you our bridge building learnings. We call it Kattoos Stories.
