At an idol-making workshop in India United Mill Compound at Currey Road, a four-foot-something woman is issuing instructions to workers shaping huge Ganesha idols. At the same time, she handles multiple phone calls to make the various arrangements needed to keep the work going: getting a truckload of raw material, keeping the tarpaulin intact on the workshop, and more.
As an event manager, the sudden shift to take care of an idol-sculpting business has been overwhelming for 34-year-old Reshma Khatu. But the daughter of sculptor Vijay Khatu, who passed away suddenly last year due to a massive heart attack, says, “I decided to take my father’s legacy forward. I could not see his legendary name simply disappear because he was gone.”
Known for the tallest, most decorative POP Ganesh idols, Khatu died a month before Ganeshotsav last year. “Though most of the work was done and he had been giving final touches to the idols, I stepped in to ensure the work was completed and deliveries were smooth,” says Ms. Khatu. As a result, she picked up most of the tricks of the trade last year. “As children, and even after growing up, my younger brother and I would visit our father’s workshop only towards the end so that we could click a lot of pictures. Our father had accepted the fact that the two of us were pursuing different careers. But after we lost him, I couldn’t help but step in.”
Khatu learnt sculpting from his father, Ramkrishna Vishwanath Khatu, who made small Ganesh idols for households. He gained recognition when he started making idols as tall as 24 or 25 feet. But the enormity of the idol was not Khatu’s only trademark. The structure, the eyes and the positioning of the ashirwaad haath (the hand blessing the people) would be such that devotees would say they could feel the presence of the lord. His idols were also known for a realistic body colour. He was a disciple of Dinanath Velling, who was the first to attempt a 22-feet idol for the popular Lalbaug mandal in Ganesh Galli in 1977.
Getting it right
“Luckily for me, my father made the process of taking over easy. He had created moulds, improvising over and over for several years. As a result, the body and other aesthetics of the idols will still have the unique Khatu touch to them,” she says. But there were no instructions on the shades of body and eye colour. So she sat down with all the old staff and took notes. “Now it’s all in a document I can refer to.”
For more than two decades, the Central Railway ground in Parel would house Khatu’s four-month idol-making workshop. This year, the ground was allotted to someone else before Ms. Khatu could apply for it. She managed to get space in the India United Mill Compound, which has many other sculptors working side by side.
Khatu catered to nearly 150 big mandals in the State and made the same number of small idols for homes with the help of his staff of 65. But Ms. Khatu has taken orders for only 15 trolleys — idols taller than 16 feet that are made on trolleys — and 92 small idols. “I have to deliver if I commit. If there is any delay, I cannot tell the mandals to postpone their schedule.”
Khatu was the man behind Ganesh Galli’s Mumbaicha Raja, among many famous mandals. But Ms. Khatu decided not to make that idol this year. “It has to be made at the spot. This would keep half my team away, and I needed them in the workshop.” The tallest idol she is making is 26 feet, for a mandal at Grant Road. Then there is one in the Sai Baba avatar, one in the form of Shrinathji, and several other unique avatars for the Chinchpoklicha Chintamani, Tulsiwadi, Kalachowki’s Mahaganapati, Fort Cha Raja and other mandals.
