“Are you a journalist?” Krushna Mondal enquires smiling. “Come, let’s have tea and I’ll tell you more,” he adds. Sitting in front of the most beautiful idol, he was instructing his men to start dismantling the structure in order to load it on a truck and send it to the buyer.
With only a few days left for Durga Puja, the workers are toiling hard in the narrow lanes and cramped workshops to make sure that the 10-armed Goddess and her children reach the pandals on time. The workers are often interrupted by photo-hungry journalists and tourists.
The shops in the area are very old.
“My grandfather set up this shop 25 years ago and now my brother and I handle the business,” said Rana Saha, while making small decorative items that he says are bought by malls and offices to decorate during the festival.
The idols are made in different shapes and sizes. Some have only Durga, while others come in a set and they are priced accordingly. The small ones cost somewhere between Rs 10,000 and 15,000. The medium sized idols cost between Rs 45,000 and Rs 60,000, depending on the artwork.
“We supply idols from here to all over West Bengal. We also send idols overseas,” says Ujjwal Pal, while mixing colour and clay.
While making the idols, the workshops not only become the working space, but also storage space for idols and raw materials, and the eating, cooking and sleeping space of karigars. Labourers and karigars live at the workshop too.
As you enter the workshop, you can see idols placed on either side. Most of the workshops have a temporary roof.
The recent monetary policies of the government like demonetisation and GST have impacted the work here. Some of the shops make idols for all occasions, including Kali Puja, Ganesh Puja as well as decorative pieces for marriages.
(Abhilash Mallick is writer and photographer, currently based out of Kolkata. You can find more of his work at abhilashmallick.com.)
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