KAVERI|CBSE CLASS 9 ENGLISH:THE POT MAKER
📚 EnglishWithMRK
Class 9 English • Kaveri Chapter 2 • CBSE 2026-27
The Pot Maker
The Pot Maker
Temsula Ao
Chapter 2, Kaveri (CBSE Class 9 English, 2026-27)
Short Story / Literary Fiction
A traditional Naga village in Nagaland, Northeast India
Third-person (omniscient narrator)
Passion and perseverance can overcome all obstacles. Traditional skills are community heritage that must be passed from generation to generation with pride and responsibility.
Young Sentila dreams passionately of becoming a pot maker like her mother and grandmother, despite family opposition and repeated failure. Through determination, compassionate guidance from Onula, and careful observation, she finally achieves mastery — on the same day her mother dies, completing a profound cycle of cultural continuity.
Passion • Perseverance • Humility • Cultural Responsibility • Community Ownership • Dignity of Labour • Compassionate Teaching
Imagine you love something so deeply that even your own mother cannot talk you out of it. You watch it in secret. You practice when no one is looking. You fail — again and again — for nearly two years. And still, you do not stop.
Imagine the skill you love is ancient — carried through your grandmother's hands, and your mother's hands, and now it waits for yours. But it does not come easily. The clay refuses to take shape. The pot collapses. You hang your head in shame.
Then one day, alone in the shed, something shifts. Your hands remember what your mind forgot. Pot after pot rises from the clay. You make a whole row — just one short of your mother's count.
But when you go inside to call her for lunch... she is not breathing.
About Temsula Ao
Temsula Ao (1945–2023) was one of India's most important writers from Northeast India — a poet, short story writer, and Padma Shri awardee from the Ao Naga community of Nagaland. She wrote primarily in English, giving voice to Naga culture, history, and identity for readers across India and the world. Her writing is known for its warm storytelling, precise detail about Naga traditions, and deep moral clarity. "The Pot Maker" reflects her lifelong commitment to celebrating the dignity of traditional crafts and the women who carry them.
Background of the Lesson
The story is set in a traditional Naga village where pottery — pot making — is a craft passed down through generations of women. In this community, such traditional skills are not considered private property; they belong to the entire village. The story captures the conflict between economic practicality (weaving earns more) and cultural passion (pot making is identity). The process of making pots is described with remarkable technical detail: clay must be fetched from a riverbank 16 km away, pounded in bamboo cylinders, shaped on a wheel with a spatula, and fired carefully in a kiln — all for very little monetary reward.
🌐 Why This Lesson Matters Today: India's traditional crafts — pottery, weaving, bamboo work, block printing — are disappearing as machine-made products replace handmade ones. This story asks us: who is responsible for keeping a culture alive? The answer it gives is both personal and collective. Every Sentila who carries a skill forward is saving not just a livelihood but a piece of history. In a world of mass production, this lesson is both a warning and an inspiration.
Part 1 — Sentila's Secret Dream (Situation)
Ever since childhood, Sentila has dreamed of becoming a pot maker like her mother Arenla and grandmother. But her mother wants her to learn weaving — which is cleaner, done indoors, and earns far more money. She explains that clay must be fetched from a riverbank 16 km away, carried uphill on aching backs, pounded in bamboo cylinders, shaped on a wheel, and fired in a kiln — all for "a pittance." Rather than confront her mother, Sentila secretly visits expert potters in the village to watch and learn. The potters are initially amused, thinking it is a childish obsession she will outgrow. But Sentila's passion never wavers.
Part 2 — The Village Council and Community Ownership (Conflict)
Sentila's secret visits become village gossip. People worry: if skilled potters don't pass on the craft, the tradition will die. The village council summons Sentila's father Mesoba and warns him. The elders emphasize a powerful principle: traditional skills like pot making "do not belong to any individual." They are the property of the community, and expert potters are obliged to teach them to anyone who wishes to learn — not just their own children. Mesoba politely deflects by saying they were waiting for Sentila to recover from illness, but goes home and convinces Arenla to begin teaching her daughter.
Part 3 — A Year of Learning and Frustration
The next year, Arenla takes Sentila to the riverbank and teaches her the full process: digging clay, soaking and pounding it, loading it into the work shed. Sentila is quick with the preparation. But when she tries to shape a lump of clay into a pot, she fails completely. She cannot hold the lump properly. She watches her mother transform the same lump into a beautiful pot in minutes — and hangs her head in shame. Session after session, for almost a full year, Sentila cannot master the shaping. Arenla teaches passively, sitting in a corner, watching. No real guidance is offered. The skill seems locked away from Sentila.
Part 4 — Onula's Compassionate Guidance (Turning Point)
When Sentila comes of age, she is sent to a girls' dormitory supervised by Onula — a kind, middle-aged widow. Onula already knows about the family conflict. One evening, when all other girls go to a music event, Onula watches Sentila quietly trying to practice with clay. She notices the problem immediately: Sentila is too tense. The clay cannot yield its shape to anxious, rigid hands. Onula gently intervenes — demonstrates the correct technique, fashioning a beautiful pot — and restores Sentila's confidence. She then gives a crucial piece of advice: "When you work with your mother next time, watch her carefully when she is shaping the mouth of the pot." This specific, patient guidance is the turning point of the story.
Part 5 — Mastery, Loss, and a New Beginning (Resolution)
Following Onula's advice, Sentila observes her mother's hands during the next session — especially how she slackens the rhythm when shaping the pot's mouth and adds a strip of clay to form the rim. Then on a bright sunny day, Arenla sends Sentila to work alone in the shed, claiming a headache. Something unlocks in Sentila. Like a sprinter finding momentum, she makes pot after pot with speed and skill she had never felt before. She finishes just one short of her mother's tally. Exhausted, she goes inside — and finds Arenla lying on the floor, no longer breathing. Onula later discovers two identical rows of pots in the shed. She cannot tell them apart. She understands: a new pot maker was born.
👤 Sentila (Protagonist)
- Passionate: Dreams of pot making since childhood; never wavers
- Persistent: Practices despite nearly two years of failure
- Observant: Learns by watching, especially Onula's technique
- Humble: Hangs her head in shame without bitterness; keeps trying
- Courageous: Pursues her calling against her mother's explicit wish
👤 Arenla (Mother)
- Practical: Values economic security over passion
- Paradoxical: A master potter who refuses to pass on her skill
- Passive Teacher: Watches Sentila fail without offering real guidance
- Testing: Possibly tests Sentila on the final day by pretending illness
- Symbolic: Her death and Sentila's mastery coincide — one life completing the other
👤 Onula (Mentor)
- Compassionate: Recognizes Sentila's problem — tension, not lack of ability
- Wise: Addresses the emotional root before the technical one
- Specific: Gives precise, actionable advice about the pot's mouth
- Intuitive: Understands, without being told, what the two rows of pots mean
- Witness: She is the story's moral conscience — she sees and understands what others miss
⚡ Central Conflict
The story contains three layered conflicts:
- Passion vs. Practicality: Sentila's love of pottery vs. Arenla's preference for weaving
- Individual vs. Community: Arenla's reluctance to teach vs. the village elders' insistence that the skill belongs to all
- Desire vs. Ability: Sentila's deep wish to make pots vs. her inability to master the technique, resolved only through Onula's guidance
📈 Emotional Arc (Sentila's Journey)
🌟 Theme: Cultural Continuity
The story's deepest theme is the continuity of culture across generations. Sentila's mastery is not just her personal achievement — it is the community's. Onula's final image of two identical rows of pots is deeply symbolic: Arenla's row and Sentila's row cannot be told apart. The skill has been perfectly transferred. The tradition will not die. The closing line — "A new pot maker was born" — is both an ending and a beginning.
✍ Author's Intention
Temsula Ao celebrates the invisible, unacknowledged work of traditional craftswomen who sustain culture without recognition or reward. She also warns that without deliberate effort to pass skills on, entire traditions can disappear. By making the community — not just the family — responsible for the transmission of knowledge, she argues for a collective approach to cultural preservation that is deeply relevant in India today.
Reason (R): The elders feared that if Arenla refused to teach Sentila, the skill of pot making might gradually disappear from the community.
A) Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A. ✓
B) Both A and R are true, but R is NOT the correct explanation of A.
C) A is true, but R is false.
D) A is false, but R is true.
Answer: A — The council's philosophical position (skills belong to community) is directly motivated by their fear that the tradition might die out.
Reason (R): Sentila was older and physically stronger than she had been during her previous practice sessions.
A) Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A.
B) Both A and R are true, but R is NOT the correct explanation of A.
C) A is true, but R is false. ✓
D) A is false, but R is true.
Answer: C — A is true; but R is false. Sentila's mastery came from Onula's specific guidance and careful observation of her mother's technique — not from physical strength.
Task
Write a short article (120–150 words) for your school magazine titled: "Why Traditional Crafts Must Not Be Lost". Use ideas from "The Pot Maker" to support your argument.
Format: Title → Introduction → Arguments (2–3 points) → Conclusion • Include a closing line.
Sample Answer:
Why Traditional Crafts Must Not Be Lost
— Class 9, EnglishWithMRK
When Sentila finally made a row of pots that matched her mother's — on the day her mother died — a craft was saved. Temsula Ao's story "The Pot Maker" reminds us that a traditional skill is never just a way of earning money. It is identity. It is memory. It is community.
India's traditional crafts — pottery, weaving, block printing, bamboo work — are disappearing. Mass production is cheaper, faster, and available everywhere. But machine-made goods carry no history. Every handmade pot tells you where its maker comes from.
More importantly, as the village elders in Ao's story say: these skills "belong to the community." When the last craftsperson puts down their tools without teaching anyone, an entire world is lost — not just a livelihood.
We must treat traditional crafts as cultural inheritance, not as old-fashioned hobbies. Support your local artisans. Learn a craft. Pass it on. A new craftsperson must always be born.
🗣 Class Debate
Topic: "Following your passion is more important than following a practical career path."
- Use Sentila's story: Is her persistence heroic, or is Arenla's practicality understandable?
- Give examples from real life: artists, craftspeople, athletes who chose passion over safety
- Counter-argument: How do families in poverty afford to follow passion instead of income?
🎤 Listening Task
Your teacher will read aloud the final scene — from "Before long, she realised that the pot was ready..." to "A new pot maker was born." Listen carefully and answer: What emotions do you feel as the scene unfolds? Why does the story end with five plain words instead of a long description?
Option A — Poster Design
Design a poster with the headline: "A Skill Is Not Yours to Keep — It Is Yours to Give." Include imagery from the story (clay, hands, pots, kiln, a young girl watching). Write a 2-line tagline that captures the theme of cultural continuity.
Option B — Dialogue Writing
Write a short dialogue (8–10 exchanges) between Sentila and Onula on the evening Onula discovers her practising. Include: Sentila's frustration, Onula's diagnosis, the demonstration, and the final advice. Keep it natural and emotionally real.
Sample opening of Option B:
Onula: Still here? The others have all gone to the music evening.
Sentila: (dropping clay) I… I was just trying again. I know I should stop.
Onula: Why should you stop? … But I see the problem. You are holding that clay as though it might run away.
Sentila: I cannot get it to do what I want.
Onula: No. Because you are telling it what to do. Clay does not listen to orders. It listens to patience.
Option C — Alternate Ending
Rewrite the final scene if Arenla had survived. How might she have reacted when she discovered Sentila's row of pots was equal to her own? Write 80–100 words from Arenla's perspective.
India has over 3,000 documented traditional craft forms — from Madhubani painting (Bihar) to Bidriware (Karnataka), from Naga pottery to Kashmiri carpet weaving. According to the Crafts Council of India, thousands of these crafts are endangered, as younger generations move to cities and no one learns the skill. When a craftsperson dies without teaching anyone, that knowledge is gone forever. The GI (Geographical Indication) tag system — which legally protects crafts like Darjeeling tea or Channapatna toys — helps, but cannot replace the living transmission of skill through practice.
"The Pot Maker" is a story about one family and one village — but it speaks for every community that has ever faced this choice: do we let tradition die for the sake of convenience, or do we carry it forward at personal cost?
★ 5 Important Exam Questions
What is the significance of the village council's decision in the story? What principle does it establish about traditional skills?
How does Onula help Sentila achieve what her own mother could not teach her in a year? What does this tell us about the qualities of a good teacher?
Describe Sentila's character. What qualities help her finally master pot making despite years of failure?
What is the symbolic meaning of the final line: "A new pot maker was born"? How does it relate to the story's central theme?
What are the differences between weaving and pot making as described by Arenla? Why does she prefer weaving for her daughter?
⚠ 3 Tricky Questions
Did Arenla deliberately pretend to be unwell to give Sentila a chance to work alone? What evidence from the story supports this interpretation?
The story says Sentila made "just one short of her mother's tally." Why is this detail important? What would it mean if she had made the same number or more?
Only Onula understands what Sentila meant when she cried out at the funeral. Why can't the other villagers understand? What does this suggest about Onula's character?
🚫 3 Common Mistakes
- Mistake 1: Students say Sentila "finally learned from her mother." She did not — she learned the crucial technique from Onula, not Arenla. Arenla's passive teaching style never succeeded.
- Mistake 2: Students say the council was "punishing" Arenla. They were not punishing her — they were asserting a community principle: that traditional skills are collective heritage, not personal property.
- Mistake 3: Students describe the ending as "sad." The ending is bittersweet — Arenla's death is tragic, but Sentila's mastery means the tradition survives. The author intends this to be triumphant as well as sorrowful.
5-Point Story Summary
- Sentila dreams of becoming a pot maker like her mother and grandmother, but Arenla refuses to teach her because weaving is more practical and profitable.
- Sentila secretly visits village potters to learn; this becomes gossip, and the council warns Mesoba that traditional skills belong to the community.
- Arenla teaches Sentila for a year but Sentila cannot master the shaping; she is too tense, and Arenla offers no specific guidance.
- Onula — a kind widow in the dormitory — diagnoses Sentila's problem, demonstrates the technique, and gives precise advice: watch how your mother shapes the pot's mouth.
- On a sunny day, left alone, Sentila achieves mastery and makes a full row of pots. She finds Arenla has died. Onula discovers two identical rows — "A new pot maker was born."
3 Key Takeaways
- Traditional skills are cultural heritage — they belong to the community and must be passed on with responsibility.
- Passion and perseverance can overcome all obstacles — but they need the right guidance at the right moment.
- Teaching requires empathy and specificity — understanding what the learner is struggling with, not just demonstrating skill.
Pre-Reading Activities
I. Identify vocations from the pictures: (1) Basket weaving (2) Pottery / Pot making (3) Weaving / Loom work (4) Carpentry / Woodwork
Five more: Blacksmithing, Embroidery/Needlework, Stone carving, Leather work (cobbling), Block printing
II.1. What is common among these pictures?
All show people engaged in traditional, skill-based, handmade crafts requiring manual dexterity and expertise passed down through generations. Workers create useful products using their hands and simple tools rather than machines.
II.2. The word is "vocations" — skill-based occupations or callings that require special training, often involving manual dexterity and craftsmanship.
II.3. Differences between handmade and machine-made products:
Handmade: unique, carries human touch and cultural identity, takes longer, may have minor variations; Machine-made: uniform, faster, cheaper, mass-produced but lacks individual character and cultural story.
Reading for Meaning
Q1. Why did Sentila hide her passion for pot making?
She had overheard her mother's conversation with her father, where Arenla explained that pot making was exhausting, poorly paid, and physically demanding. Not wanting to face her mother's opposition directly, Sentila kept her interest secret and visited village potters on her own.
Q2. What hardships does Arenla describe about pot making?
The riverbank where clay is found is 16 km away; carrying heavy loads uphill causes back pain; pounding the clay is tedious; many sessions of hard labour produce only a few rupees. By contrast, weaving can be done indoors, earns more money, and requires less physically demanding effort.
Q3. Why did the village council intervene?
People worried that if skilled pot makers refused to teach the craft, the tradition would die. The elders asserted that traditional skills belong to the entire community and must be passed on to anyone who wishes to learn — not just one's own children.
Q4. What was Sentila's specific problem during practice? How did Onula identify it?
Sentila was too tense while working with clay, which prevented her from shaping it properly. Onula recognized this by watching her "clumsy efforts" — the rigidity of her hands rather than any lack of talent — and addressed it by demonstrating the correct, relaxed technique.
Q5. What does the final scene — two identical rows of pots — signify?
It signifies the perfect transfer of Arenla's skill to Sentila. Onula cannot tell the two rows apart, confirming that Sentila has achieved the same mastery as her mother. More symbolically, it means the tradition of pot making will continue. The craft is alive. The community's heritage is safe.
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