Neerja

Neerja traces to 1978, when Dr. Leela Bordia founded the company in Jaipur after encountering Blue Pottery -- a centuries-old Indo-Persian glazed-ceramic tradition -- in a state of decline among local artisan communities. She began with just four craftspeople, two men and two women, and built the business around a deliberate principle: rather than treating the craft as a charity case, she developed it as a sustainable trade in 'utility products,' pottery made to be used daily rather than displayed as a curiosity. That model has since grown to support thousands of craftsmen and their families, with the company having formally adopted four villages to sustain artisan livelihoods, and its work extends into the ancillary trades of metalwork, woodwork and glassmaking that surround Blue Pottery production. Neerja's design output includes more than 1,000 distinct Blue Pottery patterns, and the company holds a Limca Book of Records entry for producing the largest plate in the history of Jaipur Blue Pottery, at 30 inches across. Dr. Bordia herself became the first Indian ceramist to author a coffee-table book on the craft, and Blue Pottery has since been incorporated into the CBSE school curriculum as a recognized career path.