BHOPAL: Wearing a short skirt and top, a petite Saraswati looks as charming as the pieces of jewellery fashioned by her from porcelain. Seated behind her stall displaying colourful porcelain works like pendants, earrings, finger rings and bottles she is yet another artist participating in the four-day Potters’ Market at Gauhar Mahal, which concluded on Sunday.
What, however, sets Saraswati apart from others is the fact that she is a Russian. Her original name is Renata Sereda. “Yes, I definitely know what Saraswati means. It is the name of the goddess of education, perfection and art. And that is why I have chosen that name for myself,” she told Free Press.
India is home to Saraswati and her family for the past 15 years. She lives at Auroville, a ‘universal township’ in Tamil Nadu where she and her mother run a ceramics studio. “No, no, the studio does not belong to us. Everything at Auroville is owned by the community. There is nothing personal,” she clarifies.
Describing living at Auroville as ‘a great experience’, Saraswati says that she has been into ceramics since the age of 12. At that time, she was living in Russia and her ceramicist mother had initiated her into the art. “Even when I worked as a newspaper reporter and for a TV station in Russia, porcelain remained by first love,” she says in perfect English, with a slight hint of Russian accent.
“We are a country that drinks from porcelain,” she said, adding that Russia has a rich tradition of porcelain art and adequate training facilities for those interested in it.
When asked what brought her to Bhopal, she said that last year at Delhi she happened to meet Sonia Rashid - the moving spirit behind the Bhopal Potters Market. “Sonia pushed me into attending the event,” she said with a smile. Sonia finds the experience ‘fabulous’ and plans to come back next year along with her family.
Ceramics is about creativity and experimentation and the art is flourishing in India, she says, before breaking into an impromptu jig as ‘Senorita’, a lilting song from Hindi film ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara,’ starts playing on the sound system at the Potters’ Market.
