Chennai: For the past 20 years, Jiban Krishna Pal of Hooghly district in West Bengal, has not only been making his annual trip to Chennai but also becomes one of its residents for about three months, coinciding with the Dussehra festival. Jiban, 47, along with the 20-odd other artisans hailing from West Bengal, is a vital clog in the Dussehra festivity for it is he who makes the idol of Goddess Durga, which, after all, is the most prominent aspect of a Durga puja pandal.
Entering the cramped rear portion at Bengal Association premises in T. Nagar, Jiban and his two colleagues can be found busy giving their ‘Bengali touch’ to the Durga idols. With the festival date nearing and with orders for 12 sets of idols (a set consists of the idols of Goddess Durga, Ganesh, Karthik, Lakshmi and Saraswathi), Jiban works round-the-clock to ensure that their work is completed before the deadline. This explains why they have not seen much of Chennai this time.
Though Jiban reckons that there is not much of a difference in the way Durga puja is celebrated back home, when compared to Chennai, he points to a distinction. “Unlike in Kolkata, where the idols are on an average about 12 foot tall, here the size doesn’t exceed 8 feet!” He understands that this might be due to the strict rules laid by the authorities.
Tracing the evolution of Durga puja celebrations in the city, Jiban said when he was first here in 1994, there were only a few Bengalis, but now there has been an exponential increase in the population. So, the scale of the festival has also grown. “After the work here, I go back home with about Rs 20,000-Rs 30,000. Can I make this sitting at home?”
