Artist Ganesh Ghosh paints a shara. (Sanat Kr Sinha)

A centuries-old tradition of art and worship has become poorer this Lakshmi Puja.

Lakshmi-r Shara, a circular clay plaque bearing the painted likeness of the goddess of wealth, is no longer the first choice of Bengali households or of artists in Kumartuli and Kalighat. Look for one and you surely wouldn’t be spoilt for choice at the few shops in town that still sell them.

A walk down the winding lanes of Kalighat’s Patuapara on the eve of Lakshmi Puja revealed a solitary artist who still makes the shara. “We have some loyal customers for whom my father paints a few plaques. But demand is dropping,” artist Dulal Pal’s son Biswajit told Metro.

“We now sell four or five sharas at the most. Clay idols are more in demand. My brother also makes sharas, though not for business. I know how to paint them, but I don’t,” Biswajit said.

Veteran artist Kamal Pal’s grandfather and father would make sharas every Lakshmi Puja, but he chose to discontinue the tradition. “The market dictates what we make,” he explained.

Across the street, near Kalighat market, a makeshift stall had some sharas on display on Monday afternoon. “I got these from Madhyamgram. Last year, I brought 150 sharas and sold about 120. This time I got 100, but have sold only around 25 so far,” stall owner Laltu Saha said.

The odd roadside stall apart, sharas can be bought at dashakarma shops that stock ingredients required in Hindu religious rituals. The shops in Kalighat get their sharas from Duttapukur, in North 24-Parganas. In look and feel, they are different from the sharas made at Patuapara.

The Patuapara shara is more of a shallow bowl, while the Duttapukur one is shaped like a plate and the painting on it has a glazed look. Dulal Pal’s shara has a matte finish.

The sharas procured from outside are much cheaper than the city variety, the price ranging from Rs 40 to Rs 100. The Patuapara shara costs Rs 400-500 apiece.

A row of identical Lakshmi idols at a Kumartuli workshop leaves this little boy confused about which deity to take home on the eve of the festival to propitiate the Hindu goddess of wealth. Picture by Sanat Kr Sinha

In Kumartuli, a small idol is sculpted and fixed to a shara covered in paint. The few artists who still paint sharas are the last of a generation devoted to the art form, whose origins are in Bangladesh. “One of our problems is the shortage of clay plaques. Nobody wants to make them anymore,” complained Meenakshi Pal, a fourth-generation shara artist.

Paresh Ghosh, 70, has been soldiering on but his two sons, both graduates, aren’t interested in making sharas. “Until around five years ago, I would sell 200-250 sharas every Lakshmi Puja. Now I only sell 80-90,” he said. “My old customers are sticklers for tradition, but the new generation is more comfortable with idols.”

Babu Pal, the joint secretary of the Kumartuli Mritshilpa Sanskriti Samiti, said the tradition of drawing sharas would soon be lost forever because younger artists weren’t practising the art and customers preferred idols.

Standing in front of Ghosh’s shop, Metro overheard two customers in conversation about an idol being more conspicuous than a small, intricately painted shara. “How will you set it up. Does it have anything to prop it up, or do we hang it on something? Let’s buy an idol instead,” said one of them, pulling the other away to look at some of the idols on display.

But for some, nothing but a shara would do. “The Lakshmi Puja at my house is around 500 years old and we have always worshipped sharas rather than idols. It will be sad if the shara disappears from the market,” said trader Montu Saha.

Amal Chatterjee a.k.a. Pinu Thakur, the priest at the Maddox Square Durga Puja, is another who is holding on to tradition. “Sharas were worshipped at home whereas idols are more for barowaris (community pujas),” he said.

Chatterjee got a shara from Patuapara this year, but he might not find one next Lakshmi Puja.