And so she turned to a favourite childhood fixture: the matka – a terracotta pot composed of two different types of clay and designed to act as domestic water cooler in the home.

The tiles are arranged like a bird's open beak, the top one casting deep shadows and an overhead sprinkler system, set to go off during the hottest part of the day, ensures evaporative cooling.

Soumen Maity, vice president of development alternatives, a think tank based in Gurugram in northern India, says it's heartening that terracotta constructions are providing rural artisans with a livelihood – but there are some drawbacks.

If terracotta is used more widely as a building material and manufactured to scale in factories, then there could also be another hidden cost: more energy required for transportation, points out Niyati Gupta, a senior associate in New Delhi with the climate programme at the think tank the World Resources Institute.

"Terracotta tiles manufactured in a factory environment tend to be heavier than the conventional clay bricks that artisans craft by hand, and will consume fertile soil [that could otherwise be used for agriculture]" Gupta says.

To keep terracotta water bottles in good condition, Iyer advises: "Scrub [the clay utensils] well every two to three days with a coir brush and set it outside in the Sun to prevent it from gathering moss."

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