10th September 2007 :: Returning the favor

God created man and now man tries to return the favor by creating these idols of Lord Ganesha. In Jogeshwari where the Western Express Highway meets the JV Link Road, there is a workshop where people work night and day to complete these idols of Ganpati that go as far as Chennai and Allahabad for the Ganesh Chaturthi. These idols are made of Plaster of Paris and a base paint is applied to them before the artists, who come from all over India including West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, paint the finer details on the idols. There is mould that is used to make these idols and as a result they are identical unless they are of different size.

When I asked one of the artists what they do for the rest of the year, he told me that work for these start in March. They start making the smaller idols in March as they are easier to store and in June they start with the bigger ones and move the workshop to an open and bigger location like the one they have in Jogeshwari.