Every year, Mumbai witnesses around 1.5 Lakh Ganesha idols being immersed in the sea during the Ganpati festival. Most of these are made from plaster of Paris and painted with toxic elements, which take nothing less than a few years to completely dissolve. Sprouts Environment Trust, a Mumbai-based non-profit, has come up with the perfect solution to tackle the environmental disaster that we cause ever year. Anand Pendharkar, the founder of Sprouts, is now making idols using fish food.
We started out by doing workshops for children in different colonies. But what we realised was that the workshops, although successful, did not create the much needed change. Children would learn how to make idols with fish food but then their families would go and buy clay idols from elsewhere.
– Anand Pendharkar (Founder, Sprouts Environment Trust)
It was then that he took inspiration from what was originally an idea developed by the ad agency Ogilvy & Mather, and decided to create fish food idols at his NGO. The task at hand wasn’t easy. Pendharkar met with many artisans, but none of them were willing to lend a helping hand.
Most artisans are used to making idols with clay. But then they use paints, gold and silver shimmer, the whole purpose of it being eco-friendly is destroyed. I wanted someone who would use turmeric, sandalwood, kumkum etc for the exterior of the idols.
– Anand Pendharkar
Also, it wasn’t easy to make idols out of fish food.
If the fish food got wet while sculpting, it would go bad and catch fungus. We needed to keep all these factors in mind.
– Anand Pendharkar
Finally, when they got down to making these idols, clay was chosen as the exterior, with fish food stuffing inside, keeping it free of moisture. Another specialty of these idols is that they’re as small as nine inches in height.
That’s how the original idols were supposed to be. We started making 20-feet idols in order to feed political egos. Most homes like to have little idols. After all, it is the faith that counts and not the size of the idol.
– Anand Pendharkar
Fish food idols simply had to go viral. Pendharkar has been receiving enquiries from around 18 different cities. But due to the lack of infrastructure and manpower, he is limiting his initiative to Mumbai for now. Next year, he hopes to be able to deliver across the country’s big cities. The NGO doesn’t have a virtual booking site. Neither do they deliver to individual houses yet. But the enthusiasm generated by this noble initiative truly adds to the festive spirit.
Despite that people have made the effort to come from far off places, just to pick up these idols and that in itself is overwhelming.
– Anand Pendharkar
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