As the September sun begins to mellow around 5 p.m, a bleary-eyed Ramesh Pal (47) sits up on his makeshift bunk bed. His siesta over, Ramesh starts preparing for work.
For Ramesh, like scores of his fellow artisans, the workspace that also doubles up as his home for three months every year is a makeshift tent erected inside Shiv Mandir complex at south Delhi’s Chittaranjan Park.
A few flickering light bulbs illuminate the otherwise dark tent, where more than 50 idols of Goddess Durga and her family are lined up in various stages of creation.
Ramesh is one of the many artisans, carpenters and helpers who arrive in Delhi around the end of August from different parts of West Bengal to shape sand brought from the Yamuna riverbed into idols of the Goddess, which are then taken to the 600-odd Durga Puja pandals across the NCR.
Three months
Besides Chittaranjan Park, other areas where artisans congregate to create idols include the New Delhi Kali Bari in central Delhi, Sarojini Nagar Kali Bari in south Delhi and east Delhi’s Jhilmil.
For about three months, such makeshift tents and sheds with spartan facilities are home for these artisans where they get their ‘orders’ and make the idols from scratch, completing their work just in time to go home for the Durga Puja celebrations.
“I have been coming to Delhi for the last 10 years and like the city now, even though I get little time to venture outside,” says Ramesh, while applying copious amounts of mosquito repellent ointment on his hands and face before he gets to work.
“I can’t afford to get dengue or chikungunya and the situation is pretty bad this year,” he says.
It’s a hard life for the artisans. “I start working at 8.30 a.m. and take a break for lunch at 2.30 p.m. After this we take a siesta and get back to work again at 5.30 p.m., going up to 2 to 3 a.m.,” says Raghunath Pal (26), another artisan who started making the annual trek to Delhi a couple of years ago.
What make these men leave their home and family behind to be cloistered in tents for three months every year?
Good prospects
“The money we get here is much better compared to that in West Bengal because there is a large number of artisans back there,” says Raghunath, a resident of Krishnanagar in West Bengal. “I don’t venture out of the temple much because I want to save as much money as I can,” he says.
Raghunath, like many of his ilk, learnt the art of idol-making at home by watching and following his father and uncles.
“I have grown up around idols and making them comes naturally to me. I started out by helping my father and by the time I was 18 I started making idols on my own,” he says.
Most of the material ti make the idols are sourced locally in Delhi, but the clothes, jewellery and other decorative items are brought from Kolkata.
“We get two kinds of sand. The first one is coarse with which we put the first layer on tied up hay. The second layer is made of finer sand brought from Yamuna’s riverbed, upriver from Delhi where the quality is better,” says Bhabesh Pal (52), who makes idols at the New Delhi Kali Bari premises.
The sand, however, has to be thoroughly cleaned to weed out stones and other unwanted material.
It is then mixed with measured amounts of water to make the clay.
“The clay in Delhi is more coarse than the one in Kolkata and the idols here, as a result, become much heavier,” says Bhabesh.
The major difference between demands made by Durga Puja organisers in Delhi and in West Bengal is that while the latter want more ‘theme-based’ idols, Delhiites prefer their idols to be made in the traditional Bengali style with simpler features.
“We have started getting demands for more experimental idols in Delhi though. Organisers look for newer ideas on the internet and show it to us to make identical copies,” says Raghunath.
While they spend a long time in the Capital, they leave for home on the first day of the Durga Puja celebrations.
“We miss out on all the pre-Durga Puja revelry and shopping back home but try to make it in time to be there by the second day of the puja,” says Paresh Pal (48), who works as a carpenter and helper for the artisans.
“It feels nice when our idols are appreciated by people even though we don’t wait for the celebrations,” says Bhabesh. “The hardest part is to watch the idols being immersed after the puja is over but then, that is also part of the rituals and celebration,” he says.
I start working at 8.30 a.m. and take a break for lunch at 2.30 p.m. After this we take a siesta and get back to work again at
5.30 p.m., going up to 2 to 3 a.m.
Raghunath Pal (26)
We get two kinds of sand. The first one is coarse with which we put the first layer on tied up hay. The second layer is made of finer sand brought from Yamuna’s riverbed, upriver from Delhi where the quality
is better
Bhabesh Pal (52)
