A struggle for existence, which is part of the everyday life of people living in the riverine and coastal villages of Bengal, is the subject of a Durga Puja .
The theme of Shyama Sangha, a puja held in a neighbourhood called Shyama Palli near Jadavpur 8B, is bhangon, or erosion.
According to a national survey of India’s coastline from 1990 to 2016, whose report was published in 2018, Bengal recorded the maximum erosion, followed by Puducherry, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The study was done by the National Centre for Coastal Research (NCCR), under the Union ministry of earth sciences.
While a swollen Ganges gobbles up villages in Malda and Murshidabad on a regular basis, the ecologically fragile Sunderbans delta is also vulnerable to rapid erosion.
At Shyama Palli, a giant wall, 40ft-wide and 8ft-high, serves as the background of the open pandal. Made of soil, the under-construction wall is symbolic of an earthen embankment about to give away in the face of tidal waves.
A structure resembling a village home — without a roof — stands beside the wall. The bamboo skeleton that serves as the base of a roof suggests a storm has blown the shelter away. The idol of the goddess, made of fibre, is a separate structure that will be “engraved” in the wall.
“So many embankments and dykes are breached during storms and floods in the coastal areas. People’s homes and belongings are swept away. Their existence is under threat. A sense of uncertainty always hangs on their head,” said Avijit Ghatak, the artiste behind the project.
If water eats up land in one place, soil is deposited in another. Periodical erosion and accretion are internal dynamics that can be balanced by a stable ecosystem. But construction of upstream dams and other human interference disturbs the balance and makes much of the erosion permanent, mostly in the southern tip of Bengal.
“The erosion in Malda and Murshidabad is balanced by accretion. A reasonable part of the accretion happens in neighbouring states of Bihar and Jharkhand. But in south Bengal, the problem is starker because the volume of erosion far exceeds the volume of accretion. The difference is the land gobbled up by the Bay of Bengal. There is no river in the south of Sagar Island. The land gobbled up by the sea is permanently lost,” said Sugata Hazra, professor of oceanographic studies.
In the wake of Cyclone Yaas on May 26, over 136 embankments were breached and more than 290 riverside and coastline areas submerged in the coastal districts of East Midnapore, North 24-Parganas and South 24-Parganas.
An image of residents of a village in South 24-Parganas’ Patharpratima, in chest deep water and using their bodies to shield a crumbling embankment, had “deeply moved” Ghatak. “I wanted to portray their struggle in my work,” he said.
Ghatak does not follow a sketch or a 3D model. “I try to build an organic relationship with my space or setting of work and then mould my work according to that bond,” he said.
The threat of a natural calamity is not the only uncertainty that prompted the work, according to Ghatak. The fear of losing citizenship and the threat to lives and livelihood because of the pandemic have also led to a “mental breach (moner bhangon),” said Ghatak.
“There is an overarching uncertainty. People who have lived in this country for generations are suddenly vulnerable and stand the risk of losing their citizenship. Almost every Indian has lost near and dear ones to Covid-19. The loss of livelihood is equally enormous,” said the 43-year-old, a professional artiste who has been associated with Durga Puja for over a decade.
Tragedy
The bodies of a couple and their child were found in their home in Howrah’s Liluah on Saturday. Residents of the area had alerted police about a stench coming from the apartment.
The police identified them as Avijit Das, who was a trader, wife Debjani, and daughter, 13. Avijit was found hanging from the ceiling. The bodies of his wife and daughter were on the floor. Cops suspect suicide.
A hammer was found that cops said was possibly used to kill Debjani and the daughter before Avijit hanged himself.