A potter gives final touches to the clay pots for Nuakhai. Telegraph picture

Sambalpur, Sept. 17: Biswa Rana, a potter at Bad Bazar in the city, is all smiles. The demand for earthen pots, an essential item to cook the new harvest food, during Nuakhai has picked up across western Odisha.

With Nuakhai, the harvest festival, round the corner, the potters are all set to do a brisk business.

The earthen pots are essential to cook the new harvest to be offered to the deity, as part of the festival ritual.

“Every year, we eagerly wait for the festival as it is business time for us. We get ourselves prepared for the occasion two months prior to the festival,” said an elated Rana.

The potters across the western regions of the state make all types of earthen pots required during Nuakhai.

“We start collecting the soil from Godbhaga, 30km from Sambalpur, to make the pots two to three months prior to the festival. We start making the earthen pots prior to a few days of Nuakhai,” said Rana.

“In the rural areas, the potters sell the earthen products door to door. But, here we take the products to the Sunday market for sale,” he said.

The cost of the earthen products range between Rs 20 and Rs 100 during the festival. During the festive season, a potter sells earthen pots for Rs 2,000 to Rs 2,500.

The potters also celebrate the festival in their own way. “We worship the deity and also the wheel, which provides us livelihood, during this festival,” said Nabaghana Rana, another potter.

Satynarayana Thakur, a resident of the city, said cooking the new harvest in new earthen pots was the tradition. “In this age of steel and aluminium utensils, people here buy the earthen pots to cook the food on Nuakhai. The sacred rice is cooked in the new earthen pots. The other puja items, too, are offered to the deity in the earthen pots,” he said.

Madhuri Sahu, a customer who visited the Sunday market, said: “So many types of earthen pots are put up on display here. I have come here to buy a few of them, which are essential during Nuakhai.”

“We buy all the puja items, along with the earthen pots, from the Sunday market on Nuakhai. The potters come here with all kinds of pots required for the festival,” said another customer, Khatu Luha.

Shyasunder Dhar, a writer, said: “Though a large number of people in urban area have stopped observing the ritual, still there are others, who are following the tradition to cook the new harvest in new earthen pots.”