Lailonsari heinyo

Joysundari heinyo

Entelmati heinyo

Toilohanti...

Agroup of porters recites rhythmic nonsense chants as they pull gigantic idols of Durga, her children, their mounts and Mahisasura through the dinghy lanes of Kumartuli, the hub of clay idol makers in central Calcutta.

The chanting helps them synchronise their movements even as they carry the idols from an artist’s workshop onto a truck right across the tram tracks of Chitpore Road.

These men hold the idols as the truck trundles towards the assigned pandal and unload them with care when they reach their destination.

“Lifting an ekchala thakur is a tough assignment,” says Dalim Middya, wiping the sweat off with his gamchha. If you think just about anyone can do it, you are mistaken.

In Kumartuli, people load idols onto a truck on Saturday morning. The Telegraph picture by - Bishwarup Dutta.

In an ekchala idol, Durga and her family are placed all together against a single semi-circular frame. A fair-sized ekchala idol can weigh over 1,000 kilos.

Middya, 50, is the leader of this group of 20 porters. All of them are from Thakurchak, a village in Joynagar in Bengal’s South 24-Parganas. For this specialised and laborious job, they will be paid ₹20,000, which works out to a thousand rupees per person.

Middya mutters, “Not all organisers are generous.” He continues, “We move to Kumartuli around mid-September and stay on until November, right up to Jagaddhatri Puja.” During this time, he and his ilk live in shacks adjoining the artists’ studios.

I meet him in one such tenement. As I try to make sense of the place, Middya follows my gaze — planks, worn-out bedsheets, one or two cots, utensils, stove and gas cylinder, farrata fans... He says, “We use this place only to rest or sleep in for a few hours, late at night.”

In Kumartuli, people load idols onto a truck on Saturday morning.

Their village Thakurchak is not very far from the Matla river. Suraj Bor, who is a younger member of the gang, tells me they work as daily wagers in paddy fields, brick kilns, shrimp farms and wherever they get paid.

After the Aman crop is sown in June-July, most farmhands in the villages don’t have work for the next three months. Purnendu Dey, who is a veteran ceramic artist, says, “The autumn festivals sponsored by the rich — traders and zamindars — have been a sort of employment guarantee for village folks the last 100 years.”

Dey has built a team of artisans with farmers and farm labourers from his native village Channa near Burdwan. He adds, “People of my caste are carpenters by profession. My ancestors used to be commissioned to work for the Durga Puja organised by the royal family of Burdwan.”

In Kumartuli, people load idols onto a truck on Saturday morning.

This year, Dey has hired traditional wood carvers from Notun Gram in Burdwan, which also produces wooden dolls, including owls. He is working for Dum Dum Park Tarun Dal’s puja this year. The wood carvers have been trained in fibre and sand casting and the basics of ceramics.

“We cook, eat and work together for three months. It’s like a big gathering, in the name of the Goddess,” says Bhaskar Sarkar, who has created the background of an ekchala idol with three other farm labourers from the Bagdi community.

Puja pandals are temporary shrines created with cloth on a framework of bamboo. Battens are used in pandal creation. They are strips of wood or thermocol or some other material used to create layered textures and intricate patterns and in general reinforce the main structure. Should you walk around an under-construction pandal long enough, you will hear workmen refer to them as “batam”.

In Kumartuli, people load idols onto a truck on Saturday morning.

Debkumar Basu, 55, from Nadia’s Bagula has been working on batams since 1985. This year he is at work on the puja at Jagat Mukherjee Park in Sovabazar. “Batam silai is an art,” he says proudly. He heads a team of 10 youngsters. He tells me how he has helped create “prize-winning” pandals. “We have to work with various materials, mediums and design concepts,” he adds.

This year, the organisers of Jagat Mukherjee Park Durga Puja have hired Subal Pal to conceptualise and build the pandal as well as the idol. Pal is a clay sculptor from Kumartuli.

When I am introduced to him, Pal is discussing the pandal theme with a group of men. In the conversation that follows, he keeps referring to them as “karigars”. Pal says, “The mritshilpi who works on the idols needs assistance. The karigars who come from different districts of Bengal help him.”

These men do a variety of jobs one wouldn’t imagine needed doing. They mix the clay that is used to build the idols. They build the idol framework with straw and wood. Some of them help paint the idols and dress them. Pal adds, “Such people belong to different castes, creeds, classes and religions. The goddess knits them together.”

Balaram Haldar, 42, has been making bamboo scaffolding for the last 25 years. This year he’s working at Purbachal Shakti Sangha in Haltu on the southern fringe of Calcutta. Haldar’s home is in a village in Lakshmikantapur in South 24-Parganas. He says, “I have a team of 30 workers from my village. We roam the country building pavilions and mandaps for festivals, weddings and other traditional ceremonies.”

At work in the pandal at Haltu are Qutb Ali and Hamidulla. They are from Molla-
para village near Malancha in South 24-Parganas. The two friends do all sorts of
odd jobs, from sweeping the floor to assisting the masons. “When the festive season ends, we travel to Kerala to work in construction sites,” says Qutb.

The collective term for the Qutbs is “unskilled labourer”. Artist Partha Dasgupta, who has been designing pandals for decades, dislikes the term. He has made it his business in the last some years to rally with organisers and make sure that the lives of such workmen are insured. He says, “After all, some of the work is hazardous.”

People like Dalim Middya and Qutb are at work right through Durga Puja, from start to finish, from pandal creation to dismantling and immersion.

When I ask Bhaskar Sarkar how he feels when the pandal he has carved out painstakingly is taken apart, he says, “Because we break down everything, we are inspired to create something new and better in future. Shob-i toh bhanga gorar khela… after all what is life but a cycle of breaking down and creating.”