Mohanbanshi Rudra Pal is reluctant to talk about anything. The veteran idol-maker will not even commit to whether he likes Durga idols made out of thin arrowroot biscuits. “Thin-er protima shunechho?” he asks, with a look of distaste, asked about the changes he has seen in the six decades he has been in Kumartuli.
Changes there have been aplenty, Rudra Pal Sr finally concedes. He should be in his eighties — he was “20-22 years” when he crossed over to the idol-makers’ district after Partition from Shologhar, in Bikramgarh, Bangladesh — though he looks much younger. “There were as many kumors here when I came,” says Mohanbanshi, “but everything is more glittery now. The demand has increased. Before, we would get orders from Bhadra or Ashwin (August-September). Now they start from April.” The great divide between “then” and “now”, he says, came with “art-er pratima”. “I can’t give you the date, but Gopeshwar Pal first sculpted art-er pratima. That started everything.”
For Mohanbanshi, there are only two kinds of pratimas, “ekchala and art”. Earlier, there would be one structure supporting the deities. Gopeshwar made the first free-standing figures, or “art-er thakur”. This freed the imagination, for the artists and puja organisers, and eventually led to the current innovation of “theme pujas”. But Mohanbanshi will not speak out directly against the new age. “We do both,” he says.
The shaaj (dress) of the idol has also changed. Shola is not available like before (blame it on real estate in “jola-jomi”) and the zari shaaj is more popular. Thermocol has replaced shola. The zari is made of “Rolex”. And instead of copper pellets, plastic beads are used.
But it turns out that “thin-er thakur” is a theme with Mohanbanshi now, because son Pradip, an art graduate, who works under the same “label”, is busy with a “biscuit” thakur. “Art-er protima rokomari hoi (There is variety in such idols),” Mohanbanshi justifies.
His cramped workshop points to the “variety”. On one wall hang photographs of the goddesses made by him. His best Durgas — the ekchala idols for Telengabagan are most striking — have that lovely, full, oval face, and large, tranquil eyes. But on the wall behind him, an “artistic” fibreglass Ganesh has been installed. On the wall facing him hangs a more artistic, reclining fibreglass goddess, with Ajanta-style features. The walls have bricks and creepers painted on them. “That is a theme, poro bari (an old, crumbling house).” All these are works of his son.
Mohanbanshi rules over it all like a patriarch — and is content to make the fingers of the idols. He allows himself one freedom — to categorically say he doesn’t like women with short hair: “They look like monkeys.”
