Kumartuli is a knot of narrow lanes beside the Hooghly in north Kolkata, a short walk from Shobhabazar. The name means the potters’ quarter: a kumor is a potter. Families of image makers have worked here for around three centuries, and in the weeks before Puja nearly every doorway opens onto a workshop with half-finished goddesses inside.
From frame to figure
An idol begins as a kathamo, a frame of bamboo and wood. In many workshops the first frame is worshipped on the day of Rath Yatra, months before the Puja, and work starts from there.
Straw is tied tightly over the frame to give the figure its bulk: the line of an arm, the curve of a shoulder, the lion’s haunches. Over the straw go layers of clay. The first is coarse, mixed with rice husk so it holds; the next is fine and smooth, worked by hand until the surface is even. The clay is sticky river silt, entel mati, brought up from the banks of the Hooghly.
By custom, a handful of soil from the doorstep of a sex worker’s home is mixed into the clay. The tradition has many explanations, but most come back to the same idea: that no one is shut out from the goddess.
Faces, hands and feet are usually cast in moulds and added separately, then the whole figure is left to dry. Cracks are filled, the surface is sanded, and painting begins: a base coat, then the skin tones, then the fine work of eyebrows, lips and ornaments. The eyes come last. Chokkhu daan, the painting of the goddess’s eyes, is traditionally done on Mahalaya, and it is the moment the image is said to come alive.
Dressing the goddess
Once painted, the idol is dressed. Saris are draped and pleated onto the clay, wigs of dyed jute are fixed, and ornaments go on. Two styles dominate. Sholar saaj uses shola pith, the soft white core of a marsh plant, carved into crowns, earrings and garlands. Daker saaj uses shining silver foil; the name, the story goes, comes from dak, the post, because the foil once arrived by mail from Germany.
A trade that keeps changing
Kumartuli’s artisans make more than the classic ekchala now. Theme pujas send drawings from their art directors and expect the idol to match the pandal. Lightweight fibreglass idols are packed into crates and shipped to Bengali communities around the world. Women, long kept to the edges of the trade, now run studios of their own.
The work is hard and the margins thin. Studios are cramped, a late monsoon can ruin weeks of drying, and the price of clay, straw and labour climbs every year. Many families wonder whether their children will carry on.
Visiting Kumartuli
- Go in the two or three weeks before Mahalaya, when the most work is under way. After Panchami most idols have already left for their pandals.
- The nearest metro is Shobhabazar Sutanuti, about a fifteen-minute walk.
- Weekday mornings are quieter than weekends, when the lanes fill with photographers.
- Ask before you photograph an artisan at work. Some studios ask photographers for a small fee.
- Do not touch drying idols, and keep clear of the lanes when a finished idol is being carried out to a truck.
- Finish at the Kumartuli Park and Ahiritola pujas nearby, or walk on to Bagbazar.