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This bowl has worked for a living. It’s a hand-carved wooden mortar from India, the kind called an okhli, carved from a single solid block of wood with turned bands at the shoulder and waist and a thick rolled rim. Generations of pounding grain and spices wore the inside smooth and dark.
When it cracked, someone fixed it the village way: two hand-set metal staples bridge the splits on the side, and you can see their ends inside. It has the original “Made in India” export sticker on the bottom.
It has honest, heavy age: cracks in the base and sides (stable and stapled), a worn rim, and a deep, uneven patina. That’s the whole point of it.
Approximately 8” across × 12” tall. Heavy.
Use it with a liner for an olive tree or a snake plant, to hold rolled towels or kindling, or on its own as a sculpture on a console. It’s the real thing that every “organic modern” catalog is trying to copy.
Pickup in Boulder, or come to the HI LO SALVAGE open garage on Sat 10/24, 10–3.
