L28: Guest / Practitioner Session

Good morning, everyone! I am very pleased that we have a special session today. As I mentioned last Thursday, Lecture 28 is our Guest and Practitioner Session. Before I introduce our guest, let me do a very brief recap of where we are in the course. We are in Unit III — Folk Games, Trades, and Occupations. We have covered folk games, fishing and agriculture, toddy tapping and mining, traditional crafts, occupational transition, and markets. Today, instead of me lecturing, we have someone here who actually lives this heritage. Let me do a brief framing for the session, and then we will hear from our guest. [INTRODUCTION — 0 to 10 minutes] I want to spend this opening time preparing you to make the most of today. A practitioner session is one of the most valuable educational experiences possible. You have books, you have lectures, you have your own observations — but a person who has spent their life in a traditional occupation or art form carries knowledge that cannot be found in any of those other sources. It is embodied knowledge — knowledge in the hands, in the body, in the memory. It is contextual knowledge — knowledge about specific places, specific relationships, specific moments. And it is usually knowledge that will not survive the death of the person who holds it, unless it is transmitted through apprenticeship or documentation. So I want you to listen actively and ask questions that go beyond the surface. Don't ask "what is your occupation?" — that we can read anywhere. Ask "what do you know that your father knew, and your children do not know?" Ask "what is the hardest thing to teach someone who is learning this for the first time?" Ask "what changes have you seen in your lifetime?" Ask "what do you fear will be lost?" These are the questions that unlock the real knowledge. I also want to say: treat this person with the respect due to a master. In the traditional knowledge world, a master potter or a master toddy tapper or a master Tiatr playwright is as accomplished in their domain as a professor is in theirs. The knowledge hierarchies are different, not lesser. [CORE CONTENT — 10 to 40 minutes] [The lecturer introduces the guest — in this transcript, we will represent the session as a facilitated interview format, as the guest's specific identity will vary by semester.] Let me introduce today's guest. We are honoured to have with us today a master Ghumat maker from Bicholim — a third-generation potter who has been making Ghumat drums for over forty years. He has supplied Ghumats to musicians across Goa and to cultural organisations as far away as Bombay and Bangalore. He is also a practicing farmer who maintains a traditional khazan field in partnership with his family. Please welcome him. [Applause] Let me start with a few questions, and then I will open the floor. First question: Can you tell us about the process of making a Ghumat? What does it take, from the beginning to the finished drum? [Guest speaks — approximately 5 minutes. The lecturer summarises and annotates for the class:] What he has described is remarkable. The clay is not just any clay — it is specifically the black clay from the riverbank, collected only after the monsoon, when the sediment is freshest. He has been collecting from the same riverbank for forty years — a stretch near the Mapusa river. He says the clay at that spot has a specific character — it fires without cracking at the temperature his kiln reaches. He tried clay from other locations and it does not work the same way. That is deep local ecological knowledge. The shaping takes — he says — about two hours for one pot if everything is going well. But the drying takes three days minimum, and another three days of slow firing. So a single Ghumat drum body takes about a week to produce. And the skin — he says the monitor lizard skin is now very difficult to find because of legal protection. He has been experimenting with goat skin, but the acoustic quality is different. He says the monitor lizard skin resonates at exactly the right frequency because of its specific density and elasticity. He cannot fully explain why — he knows it from experience. Second question: How did you learn this? Who taught you? [Guest speaks — approximately 4 minutes. Lecturer annotates:] He learned from his father, who learned from his father. He says his father used to test the clay by biting it — tasting the mineral content. He laughs at this — says he still does it. He cannot explain exactly what he is tasting for, but he says a good clay has a certain weight on the tongue. This is sensory knowledge that no textbook captures. He tried to teach his two sons. One son moved to Pune for IT work. The other son helps occasionally but says it is not reliable income. He worries that when he stops — and he says he cannot do this work forever, his knees hurt from squatting at the wheel — there may be no one to continue. Third question: What was different about making Ghumats thirty years ago compared to today? [Guest speaks — approximately 4 minutes. Lecturer annotates:] Thirty years ago, he says, every village had festivals that needed Ghumats. The Shigmo procession alone would require ten to fifteen new Ghumats because the old ones cracked in use. Today the Shigmo procession still happens, but organisations sometimes use plastic or fiberglass Ghumats that last longer. He says the fiberglass Ghumat sounds wrong. He can hear the difference from fifty metres. But the organisers say it is cheaper and more practical. He shakes his head. He also says the tourists buy small decorative Ghumats — toys, really — which have no acoustic function. He makes these too because they sell. But making a Ghumat that does not sound like a Ghumat feels wrong to him. It is like making a sitar that cannot be played. Fourth question for the class — let me open the floor. Who has a question? [Student questions — approximately 10 minutes. Possible questions:] Q: What is the difference between a good Ghumat and a bad Ghumat to the touch before it is fired? Q: Have you ever refused to sell a Ghumat to someone? Q: What do you think will happen to this craft in twenty years? Q: Do you think the Goa government is doing enough to support traditional potters? [Lecturer facilitates questions, summarises key answers for the class] Some of what he said in response to the government question is quite pointed and I want to highlight it: he says there are schemes and awards, but no one actually buys enough Ghumats at fair prices. He says an award certificate does not pay his children's school fees. What would help him is if cultural organisations — Kala Academy, Tiatr producers, temple festival committees — were required to purchase Ghumats from traditional makers at a fair price, not from the cheapest supplier. A procurement policy. That is a very specific and actionable suggestion. [ACTIVITY AND DISCUSSION — 40 to 55 minutes] I want to spend this section in a structured reflection. Take five minutes and write in your notebook: what was the single most surprising thing you learned from today's session? Not what you found interesting — what genuinely surprised you, something you did not expect or had not considered. [pause] Let me hear a few responses. [Takes responses — 5 minutes] I notice that several of you mentioned the clay-biting test — the sensory quality of craft knowledge. That is something we cannot learn from a book. Several of you mentioned the concern about fiberglass replacing clay and what that says about institutional priorities. Very good. Discussion Question 1: Our guest said he cannot explain why monitor lizard skin makes a better Ghumat than goat skin — he just knows it from experience. This kind of tacit, embodied knowledge is very difficult to document or transmit except through direct apprenticeship. What does this mean for heritage conservation? If the knowledge cannot be written down, how do we preserve it? Discussion Question 2: He made a very concrete policy suggestion: procurement policies that require cultural institutions to buy from traditional makers at fair prices. Do you think this is a realistic and effective policy? What would the implementation challenges be? [SUMMARY AND ASSIGNMENT — 55 to 60 minutes] Today was a different kind of lecture — a practitioner encounter. What we gained is irreplaceable: direct testimony from someone who holds living craft knowledge, spoken in their own words, in response to genuine questions. The texture of this knowledge — the clay-biting test, the specific riverbank, the feel of a good pot before firing, the grief at the fiberglass Ghumat — that is not available in any book or archive. I want you to write a full practitioner profile for your assignment. Using your notes from today, write a 600-word practitioner portrait: who this person is, what they do, what they know, what they fear losing, and what they need. Write it as if for a newspaper feature — someone who has never heard of this person should come away from reading it understanding both the practice and the person. Submit by next class. Next lecture — Lecture 29 — is our Student Presentations session. You will each present your trades documentation project — the field research you have been doing throughout this unit. I will give you presentation guidelines at the start of that session. Come prepared with your materials. This is a substantial part of your internal assessment. See you Thursday!