Shardiya Navratri started from Sunday and Durga idols will be installed in puja pandals on Panchami (fifth day). The worship of idols will start from Shashthi (sixth day). Kolkata’s famous sculptor Niloy Mitra along with his eight laborers is rapidly giving final touches to the idol of Maa Durga in Talkatora area of Lucknow. He has received more than 60 orders for the idols. Niloy Mitra’s father started making idols decades ago with just two orders. Today he gets orders from most of the big pandals in the city, to meet whose demand he has to call eight assistants from Kolkata for more than three months every year. Niloy Mitra graduated from Arts College, Lucknow University. He told that when I was very young, we started making idols with only two orders. Today the number of orders has increased. All this is the grace of Mother Durga. Now Durga Puja is being celebrated in the city on a much larger scale than before.
Niloy’s cousin Robin Mitra is also famous
Like Niloy, his 21-year-old cousin Robin Mitra has also received around 50-60 orders, which include 11 feet tall idols for Nadarganj Puja and 9 feet tall idols for Model House Durga Puja. He has also hired 10 laborers from Kolkata. Let us tell you that there are more than hundreds of idols in the basements of Mitra brothers which are taking their final shape as they are to be installed in the Durga pandals of the city within the next few days.
Famous sculptor Sujit Pal makes only 25 statues.
Like the Mitra family, there is another famous sculptor Sujit Pal, who does not take orders for making more than 25 statues every year. Following a rich tradition of three generations of idol makers taking orders from puja committees in and around Lucknow, Sujit Pal works with a team of three sculptors who hail from Bahraich. Some painters in the team come from Kolkata. Like previous years, this year too he has made statues for Ravindra Palli and Bandhu Mahal. Even idols have been made for worship in Lakhimpur Kheri and Barabanki.
More than 250 registered pandals in Lucknow
Sculptors and puja committees believe that Durga Puja celebration is growing rapidly in the city, especially after the pandemic and many new and old puja pandals have added to the splendor of the festivities in the city. People from outside the Bengali community also participate enthusiastically in the festival. The city started with just one puja in 1914, the Bengali Club, today the number has grown to more than 250 registered big and small pandals. As per the registration for Durga Puja in 2022 with Lucknow Police, 121 pandals and 133 non-pandals were to be set up across the city. A total of 54 Ramlilas and 55 Ravana Dahans took place.
Dimple Dutta, Secretary of Ravindra Palli Durga Puja Committee, said that earlier, Durga Puja meant visiting only a few pandals in the city. Now pandals are everywhere. Tuhin Banerjee, administrator of Trans-Gomti Durga Puja Committee in Aliganj, said that this has increased now. Although we are still behind Kolkata. Another idol maker and sculptor Abhijit Biswas said that unlike earlier days, we are also getting demand from various small pujas being held in apartments. Tapan Mukherjee, president of Sunrise Durga Puja Committee at Sunrise Apartment on Kanpur Road, said that many people of the Bengali community have recently migrated to other cities for jobs and other purposes. They have given rise to many small-scale pujas organized by apartment residents.
Employment opportunity for artists of Bengal
There has been a rise in Durga Puja except after two years of Covid. Thousands of artists from West Bengal are coming to the city for various types of work, including idol makers, pandal makers, dhaki priests and others. 45-50 employees are working in a pandal on Jail Road, 20 in Ravindra Palli, 50 from Midnapore in West Bengal in Jankipuram Sector F and 20 in Sahara Estate. Similarly, laborers from UP and West Bengal have been employed in most of the pandals of the city. Kolkata-based idol maker Monojit Pal and his colleague Gopal Pramanik in Talkatora said that we come here every year because we get paid here apart from food and accommodation.