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Ctg craftsmen busy preparing for Durga Puja

Minhaj Uddin, ctg
With Durga Puja, the largest religious festival of the Hindu community, just round the corner, craftsmen of Chittagong are busy meeting deadlines in making tableaux of the Hindu goddess Durga.
This year the four day festivities and religious rituals, from September 20 to 24, will be organised in over 230 puja mandaps, excluding some 30 private ones, in the city, said Timir Baran Chowdhury, president of Chittagong City Puja Udjapon Parishad.
With 10 more mandaps being set up in the city than last year, craftsmen are working round-the-clock in some 15 workshops devoted to making figures of the gods.
A visit revealed that most of the workshops were situated in Sadarghat Kalibari, Bosh Goli, Nalapara, Nitthanondo Dham, Hazari Goli, Patharghata Gangabari and Dewanji Pukur Lane.
Apart from the local ones, craftsmen from Shariatpur, Faridpur, Gopalganj, Netrakona and even India arrived months before to prepare the installations.
Each workshop can annually create 10 to 40 installations. Each installation usually comprises the main female goddess Durga, revered as the mother of the universe, astride a lion killing the buffalo demon Mahesha and flanked by her four children.
The children are Laxmi, goddess of wealth: Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge; Kartik, the god of beauty and warfare; and Ganesha, the god who initiates everything good.
The craftsmen said the demand for the cheaper "oriental” idols was higher than that of the traditional ones this year while there were also some orders for electronic ones.
The traditional idols are the most commonly found. They are firstly sculpted out of straw and bamboo and then covered with several layers of clay and mud.
The figures are then coloured and the master craftsman paints the eyes of the idols, known as Chakkhudan, symbolising the gods inhabiting the figures. The idols are then decked in ornamented saris, jewellery, flowers and brightly illuminated.
The installations are finally completed
with a decorated arched backdrop embellished with traditional drawings.
The process is same for the “oriental” ones, but the accessories are sculpted from clay. Prices can vary depending on the size, design, detail and accessories, ranging fromTk 15,000 toTk70,000.
The electronic ones differ by the fact that their hands and heads can move but cost much higher, ranging from Tk 70,000 to Tk 3.5 lakh.
Dulal Pal, owner of Sadar Ghat Kali Bari, one of the popular workshops, has been making idols for over 40 years.
He says the "oriental” idols are increasingly gaining popularity for being diverse, colourful and cheap.
This year he is happy to have made 35 idols with ten craftsmen in his workshop. Only three of the installations are the traditional ones while the rest are “oriental”.
However, not all of the workshop owners are optimistic about their profits this year. Some are even in fear of making losses. Some of them put the blame on some puja mandaps for hiring craftsmen from outside the city and India to make the idols.
Satyaranjan Pal, owner of a workshop at Patharghata Gangabari and involved in the business for some 40 years, said he had got orders for only ten idols this year.
“It is not economically viable to run the workshop when you have around 10 craftsmen working, but only get orders for ten installations. I may not be able to continue running the workshop next year,” he said.
The owners said they paid the craftsmen Tk 8,000 to Tk 20,000 per month based on the range of their skills.
Meanwhile, the themes of some mandaps have changed with the demands of the customers.
"Pancha Bhoot”, the theme of Gosail Danga Soshan Kali Mandir, is based on ghosts while “Seven Planets" of Hazari Gali Puja Udjapan Parishad will depict the solar system and “Earthquake” of Sotish Babu Lane is based on natural disasters.
The preparations reach a culmination on the day of the immersion of the idols in rivers, looking forward to the future for a new beginning full of hope.