Sixty-year-old N Pitchai stands under a sun-lit roof inside his home-cum-workspace, surrounded by giant idols of Lord Ganesha. He's busy giving the final touches of colour to them, engrossed in painting floral motifs on the crown of one of the idols. For the past five decades, Pitchai is one of the few artisans in Vilachery who have stuck to making clay idols. Long since Plaster-Of-Paris replaced mud in this hamlet of potters, many of the doll-makers have forgotten clay.
“PoP is cheap, easy-to-make and easily available,” he says, “but the demand for clay idols along with their prices has gone up.” “I believe idols made of clay have life in them,” he says and adds, “My father who taught me pottery used to say that earth breathes and it supports many forms of life like insects and worm. The art of pottery comes from the five elements of nature.”
Three months before Ganesh Chaturthi, the doll-makers gear up for the festival, starting to source clay from dry tank beds. Traditional potters like Pitchai do it with piety and faith.
As Chaturthi nears, the streets of Vilachery are dotted with idols wrapped and packed, ready to be sent to various places. “We observe strict abstinence, take only vegetarian food and sometimes also fast before starting to build a Ganesha idol,” says 23-year-old A Sundar. “Though the market is now flooded with papier mache and PoP dolls, the uniqueness and charm of clay idols is still alive.”
This year, Sundar along with his father Alagarsamy have made over 30,000 clay idols of six inches size, many of which are sold in markets across the country and some even reach customers abroad. “Last week, a customer from Bangalore ordered 100 idols to be sent to Singapore,” he adds.
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The making of a pacchamann pillayar is entirely handwork. They are not made in moulds and are time-consuming. Pichai who builds clay idols of 10 feet says that it takes a fortnight to complete a single idol.
“The clay is a homogenous mixture of elephant dung, seived Karambai mud or clay and sand from river bed.
We start the idol on a wooden plank and the entire structure is built without any supportive framework using wooden logs or hay. The elephant dung gives necessary texture and the sticky clay sits on it intact,” explains Nagamma, who learnt pottery from her husband.
Alagarsamy says that potters in Vilachery make an average of 20,000 PoP Ganesha idols every Chaturthi.
“It requires over 2,000 kilos of Pop, 400 litres of paint and 200 kg of papier mache.
It's a colossal damage to the environment and that's why few potters like us have still held on to clay, albeit the difficulties involved. Recently, there's an increase in awareness and many organising committees have switched over to clay idols,” says Alagarsamy, who supplies to Madurai, Usilampatti and Thirumangalam.
“Though traditionally there was no paint used, people now insist on colourful idols and we use only water colours. We have kept off enamel or synthetic colours. The small idols are left without any paint as they are meant for home poojas,” says Pitchai. “The price of clay idols depends on the size. We charge ₹2,000 per feet for the big ones.”
If the Vilachery doll makers in Madurai are fighting hard to remain loyal to the good-old clay pillayar idols, few youngsters in Mumbai have introduced the devotees to seed Ganpatis.
Tree Ganesha
An innovative concept and an instant hit, the clay Ganpati idols come with seeds inside them. In metro cities and especially Mumbai, where Ganesh Chaturthi is the biggest festival, people are increasingly turning to these eco-friendly idols that dissolve to become plants.
“I thought why not make an idol that gives back something. People spend so much in buying idols and they would be happy to receive a value addition. That's when I thought of putting seeds inside clay idols,” says Dattadri Kothur, a youngster from Lower Parel, who has been making his own clay idol for the past five years. He calls his clay idol as Tree Ganesha.
“As a Mumbaiite, Ganesh Chaturthi is my favourtie festival. But I was disturbed seeing the humongous pollution caused during Visarjan every year. The Chowpatty beach littered with broken parts of PoP idols made me realise that we need to change.”
In 2015, Kothur sold 200 seed Ganpatis. “I uploaded a video on YouTube explaining the concept and the response was overwhelming. The demand went up and this year, I have already sold 5000 idols.” Every idol has five to eight seeds and comes in a pot. Seeds of Tulsi, lady’s finger and marigold flowers are preferred as they are easy to grow in a pot, consume less water and grow fast. “I ask buyers to pour water on the idol, as a symbolic visarjan and the entire idol dissolves to become mud. It's a happy feeling when the pot bears seedlings.” The idols come in four sizes – nine, 12, 15 and 18 inches costing ₹2200, ₹3000, ₹3700 and ₹4500 respectively. Much of the sales is through online and they have pick up points in Mumbai, Pune, Nashik, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Indore, Surat, Baroda and Ahmedabad.
Visit www.treeganesha.com for more details