Ghosh at the 66 Pally pandal. Picture by Sanjay Chattopadhyaya

One is not enough for Sanjit Ghosh when it comes to Durga puja. The puppeteer, based in Ramoji Film City, Hyderabad, has envisioned all his puja themes around multiple idols ? Bhairavi, Chandi or Shiva. And he insists that each of these gods or goddesses be worshipped with the same solemnity as Durga in the pandal.

On a break from the stage and the small screen, the artist shows around the dilapidated mansion he has created on Nepal Bhattacharjee Street for 66 Pally. ?It is a zamindar?s house where a Bhairavi idol was found. But the villagers have just left it in a corner. The image is crying for pious attention.?

If the story sounds a well-knit one, much of the credit goes to Gulzar. Ghosh?s first major work on television, Potlibaba ki, which enjoyed a two-year run on Doordarshan, was scripted by the pen that produced Maachis, Ijazat and Lekin. ?I learnt so much from Gulzar saab about screenplay,? admits the man who made his puppets Alibaba and Alladin familiar faces on the telly.

Such plots have been woven around every puja. At Shibmandir, on Lake Temple Road, worship of power in Bankim Chandra?s novels is in focus. Tilottama meets Jagat Singha at a Saileshwar temple (Durgeshnandini); a kapalik meditates on a body in front of a Bhairavi idol (Kapalkundala); and Bhabani Pathak initiates Prafulla into a freedom-fighter?s life with Shiva as witness in a hideout (Debi Choudhurani). Durga is to be installed between twin Shivas in the Shaileswar temple.

At Netaji Sporting Club, Lake Town, refugees, in his imagination, have rescued a Chandi figure from the pond and installed it in a temple. Twelve shiva lingas line the temple corridor. In the courtyard, the refugees have erected a small pandal for Durga in an ambience reminiscent of the ?60s pujas in the colonies.

At 95 Pally in Jodhpur Park, though, Ghosh is playing with light and sound in a Tantric dome, where a fibre glass goddess melds with the ambience, beside a small clay idol.

Ghosh?s involvement with puja started accidentally. ?The Kali puja pandal in our para (Lake Market) got razed. The boys came to me for help the next year. I planned the structure with fire-proof materials.?

That was 1977. But it was only in 1999 that he agreed to work on a Durga puja. In the interim, B.R Chopra?s Agnipariksha had happened. ?The film, directed by Kamalda (Majumdar of Lukochuri fame) had an entire song picturised on puppets with Amol Palekar pulling the strings.? He was also getting busy with puppet shows. But he could not turn down para boys.

The Puja is keeping him away from Panchatantra, his ETV project being beamed in seven languages. But the combined call of creativity and piety is hard to resist.