Calcutta, Oct. 14 :    Calcutta, Oct. 14:  A one-armed idol-maker is burning the midnight oil to 'light up' a middle-budget north Calcutta baroari puja in a very special way. For Prasanta Sen's goddess will be made of matchsticks, not clay. Sen, who has been sculpting idols for the Shib Shankar Mullick Lane Adi Durgotsab Puja Committee for the past 25 years, lost his right hand in a mishap in 1968. But it isn't as much of a handicap for the idol-maker from Lalbagan, just off Kumartuli, as the rain that just refuses to go away. With a deluge a day, the idol is still far from complete. 'I usually apply the final touches a week before the Pujas,' Sen, with several matchsticks between his teeth, which now doubles as his right arm, manages to say. 'This year, more than 60 per cent of the work is yet to be done,' he adds, wondering how he would finish the job by Panchami. Sen has already used 8,500 boxes of matches, and feels that the completed idol will need at least 20,000. That's one million matchsticks, he calculates, and says if that doesn't light up the Shib Shankar Mullick Lane puja, nothing will. The unique medium for bringing the goddess down to earth, however, has compounded the club's fire-fighting worries. 'We know that match-sticks are highly inflammable and so we are planning several special precautionary measures,' Sukumar Das, a senior member of the club, admits. For one, the pratima will be sprayed with water every day. High-wattage halogen lamps will be a no-no to cut down on the risk factor. 'This year, it will be only low-wattage tubelights inside and near the pandal,' Das adds. The club's penchant for novel material has forced their idol-maker to experiment with several media not usually associated with pratimas. In 1975, Sen carried out his first experiment. 'I used iron nails that year,' he recounts. Over the years, he has made idols of empty toothpaste tubes, blades, mosquito-repellent mats and even spring-coils. The club's popularity has increased and his name has spread. 'I have got numerous offers from much bigger-budget pujas. But I have refused,' he says. 'I am, after all, a member of the puja committee on Shib Shankar Mullick Lane,' he explained.