KUMORTULI - The Place where God is born

I still remember the first day when I visited "Kumortuli". The narrow lanes and bylanes will never give you the comfort to move freely. But as you start moving, you are sure to get amazed by the amount of creativity that exists in that place. Kumortuli, the pottery hub of West Bengal is like that only. It will never stop surprising you.

The workshops look like they were abandoned for decades. The tin roofs leak water and that is taken care off by plastic sheets. And apart from these plastic sheets what you will see everywhere are Idols. It was Durga Puja in the coming days and so, the artists were busy making Durga Idols. A ten foot by ten foot workshop is stuffed with so many idols that I wondered how the artists manage to give shape in such constraint of space.

I got a season pass for myself for fifty rupees. This is the cost you have to pay for getting the permission to do photography at that place. The money collected is spent on welfare of the artisans there.

I talked to an artist working there.

He said that, they have to prepare for the Pujas all through the year. It is only during the Pujas that they make most profit. But the income during the Pujas is not sufficient to drive their family for the entire year. They have to think of alternate sources of income. Some of the artists are switching professions due to this. It is very hard to survive there.

I walked through the narrow lanes looking at some amazing work of clay. Some idols were about fifteen feet high. They were huge but still perfect. Veteran Artist Nimai Pal was using a blower to dry the wet clay. It had rained for the past few days and the sky had been consistently overcast. It makes life harder for them. The idols does not dry up in time but they have to start coloring them. The deadline is fixed and by no means it can be extended.

I kept on making rounds of the place. I saw that some buyers had come in groups and they were visting the workshops looking for the idols of their choice. Some Puja organizers do not order in advance and they come before the Pujas to get the idol of their choice. The Artists prepare well in advance for the orders they get at the beginning of the season, but some they get very late. But they have to accept it. For them, an order means money and they cannot refuse it even if it means working overtime.

Kumortuli supports some other small scale industries associated with the making of idols. Here and there, you could see shops selling items required to decorate the idols. It ranges from the decorated aparrels for the idols to the false hairs and other necessary items. There are a large number of people working day and night to create these items. These items are a piece of art too.

While moving around I saw a 12 feet high durga idol being taken out of a workshop and loaded into a truck. It was unfinished but some organisers like to take the idols to their premises at the semi completed stage. Whatever damage that occurs in transit can be rebuilt easily. Taking these big idols from the workshop to the puja premises is a tough ask. It takes the physical strength of around twenty people to pull the idol out of the workshop and load it into the truck. The same effort is needed while unloading. I realized that Kumortuli supports the livelihood of a huge number of these unskilled labourers too.

I talked to a worshop owner there and asked him why they do not appeal to the government to improve the condition of the place. He said that government has already taken a noble initiative to rebuild this pottery hub of West Bengal. This year would be the last year for the artists to work in such constrained facilities. Soon after the Pujas, the place would be renovated part by part. For the meantime, the workshops would be shifted to some place in Bagbazar.

I spent some more time there, talked to a few more people and then left the place for my home. On my way back, I kept on thinking that how can such a place give birth to such marvellous pieces of art which is not confined to the boundaries of Bengal and is exported all over the world. I was really surprised. But then I thought and realized that like lotus is born in swamps, it is probably the place where god prefers to be born.