Women make name in idol-making

Kumortuli, the artisans’ district in north Kolkata, is not much different from an island. Although not isolated form the rest of the city, it stands out much like a hamlet in the middle of Kolkata’s brick, mortar, glass and concrete. And for two decades, China Pal has been living in the middle of the idolmakers colony, where men work in row after row of small workshops.

Tell China that she has broken tradition or defied the norms of gender, and she would give a shy smile. For her, no feminist discourse matters; she just keeps etching out beautiful faces of Durga and other deities in her small studio, with hands steady like a rock and mind, isolated like an atoll.  China, most likely in her mid-40s now, is the first woman idolmaker at an outpost, where men have ruled the roost for around two centuries.

For China, the journey started back in 1994, after her idolmaker father, Hemanta, passed away a fortnight before Durga Puja, leaving behind a workshop full of incomplete idols. Barely 23 years, she took up the challenge of delivering on her father’s promises and completed the orders, despite her limited knowledge of the tradecraft. Using whatever she had picked up from observing her father since her childhood, China gave shape to dreams.

Stuck in her small room at the edge of Kumortuli, she finished the idols. Over the years, she picked up the tricks of the trade, adding to the skills she had developed on the job. China still does not work on big idols and her speciality being medium-sized ekchala or one-frame idols, which are opted for in household celebrations. After 22 years, China is a name to reckon with when it comes to these idols and for old-moneyed Bengali families, who continue to keep up an age-old ancestral tradition, hers is the first door they knock.

Even though she started at a point of despair, China has managed to get two of her sisters married and helped her two brothers manage gainful employment. Now a professional idolmaker like hundreds of others working in Kumortuli, China has found her true calling. “This is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I’ll remain an idolmaker,” she says.

A few kilometers  from Kolkata, on the other side of the River Hooghly, sits yet another woman, who is no less intent on the task at hand. Not unlike China, she etches out beautiful faces of Durga and other deities from soft riverine clay and has made a name for herself. Shibani Pal, who works out of a similarly small workshop at Andul in Howrah, was also pushed into the job under equally tragic circumstances, around the same time as China. Her husband Ashok, an idolmaker, died in a road accident on NH 6, while on his way home. Shibani was also 23, with the additional responsibility of two-year-old son Anjan, who is now her assistant.

With the accident happening around three weeks before Durga Puja, some 40 idols were lying incomplete in his workshop and Shibani had to gather a small army of helpers to finish the idols, with whatever little knowledge she had. Not only did she manage to finish the idols on time, a determined Shibani stuck to her guns and kept her husband’s goodwill steady for the last two decades. Much like her family members and relatives, Shibani had doubts about getting the job done.

But with determination and steadfast focus, she kept at it. “A lot of people were apprehensive that a woman, with a child to raise, might not be able to do justice to the work. But I was resolute. I had to carry on for Anjan,” she says. Now 24, her son is ready to carry forward the family legacy. “I’m getting old but Anjan helps me.  Over the years, I have trained Anjan so that he can take up the mantle from me when the time comes,” she says.

The story of Kakoli Pal, yet another woman who makes a living from Durga idols, is not much different either. Just like China and Shibani, tragedy pushed her towards a job that has for years been considered a male domain. As she completed 17 idols this year from her small, under-lit workshop at Kumortuli, she reminisced how she had to make herself fit in her husband’s shoes, when he suddenly died in 2005.

A homemaker since the age of 21, Kakoli’s days were spent feeding her husband and taking care of her two infants. When her husband passed away, she was forced to start making idols as she had no other skills. Thankfully for her, she is also an idolmaker’s daughter and had picked up the skills from her father since childhood. “I had two little children to raise and I had no interest bin idol-making. But I had no other work experience so there was hardly any choice but to take up the trade,” she explains.

Although Kakoli believes her hearth has kept burning due to the blessings of Durga, others in Kumortuli pointed out how hard she had to work to make her mark and gain the trust of customers. Considered a male-dominated trade, idolmakers of Kumortuli seem to welcome  the idea of China and Kakoli taking up the job. Babu Pal, an idolmaker and former secretary of Kumortuli Mritshilpa Sanskritik Samiti, a body representing the area’s idolmakers, pointed out how around 10 women have workshops in the artisans’ district.

Appreciating that women are willing to take up the job, veteran idolmaker Kumar Pal pointed that at a time when among the younger generation, most sons are not eager to stick to tradition, women coming forward is a good sign. China, however, says that for most women artisans, who had the job thrust upon them, the inspiration is not keeping up tradition but the goddess herself. “The image of Durga vanquishing the demon gives me courage. It keeps me strong,” China says.