Di­vali is the busiest time for pot­ters as peo­ple buy thou­sands of deyas to light up their homes for the fes­ti­val of lights. Clay pots, vas­es, urns, kalsas, gob­lets, loban, cups and pitch­ers are al­so made dur­ing this time.

Chase Vil­lage in Ch­agua­nas and the com­mu­ni­ty of Ed­ing­burgh have been the tra­di­tion­al homes and is syn­ony­mous with pot­tery. The pot­ters' shops are a bee­hive of ac­tiv­i­ty lead­ing up to Di­vali as gen­er­a­tions of ko­hars or tra­di­tion­al In­di­an pot­ters as well as next-gen­er­a­tion pot­ters race to cre­ate clay dec­o­ra­tions for cus­tomers across the coun­try, ex­pats to car­ry as sou­venirs or me­men­tos of their tra­di­tion­al roots when they re­turn to their homes in the di­as­po­ra as well as tourists.

The clay is formed and shaped by the skilled hands of pot­ters on the pot­ter's wheel to what­ev­er ob­ject the cus­tomer de­sires.

The pot­tery shops hire more peo­ple around this sea­son. Fires from the wood-fired ovens glow all night bak­ing the clay prod­ucts as the fire needs to be stoked with wood and row up­on row of deyas are dried in the sun.

Pot­tery is al­so a fam­i­ly af­fair, even the chil­dren help in small in­cre­ments as they are grad­u­al­ly taught the tra­di­tion­al fam­i­ly skills passed down to the next gen­er­a­tion.

Rel­a­tives and wives of the pot­ters help with the art­work, paint­ing and dec­o­rat­ing the fin­ished pieces. In the run-up to Di­wali, the com­mu­ni­ty trans­forms, giv­ing not just jobs to many, but bost­ing the vil­lage econ­o­my al­so.

The streets throng with shop­pers, buy­ing every type of clay or­na­ment from pots and lamps to flower vas­es and stat­ues of gods and god­dess­es. Pho­tog­ra­ph­er EDI­SON BOODOOS­INGH cap­tured these im­ages at Makh Pot­tery Shop in Ed­ing­burgh, Ch­agua­nas.