Moving into Sankalpa Artwork Village in Pedagadi, a quiet locality about 20 kilometres from Visakhapatnam, the air feels heavy with the scent of moist earth. There’s a subdued chatter of leaves within the breeze and the measured rhythm of palms shaping one thing slowly and intentionally. Within the shade of a thatched-roofed workshop, three artisans from Kantai village in West Bengal work silently, bent over their craft with the quiet dedication of a prayer. Right here, Ganesh Chaturthi is being reimagined, rooted within the earth.

That is their second yr at Sankalpa. Saptaranjan Giri, a talented idol-maker whose household has been within the craft for generations, begins by tying bundles of dry grass to wood frames. This construction will function the skeleton of the idols. With persistence, he applies layers of river clay, slowly coaxing out the acquainted type of the deity with a care that’s each methodical and private.

A brief distance away, Shashanka Bera mixes activated charcoal with water. Utilizing a tremendous brush, he rigorously paints the eyes of one of many idols, giving it a gaze that’s arresting in its simplicity. There aren’t any vivid pigments right here, no glittering decorations. Beside him, Ram Giri works on getting ready the color white utilizing rice flour combined with simply sufficient water to succeed in the suitable consistency. It’s this combination that shall be used to outline the contours of the idol’s face and torso.

“We don’t paint the idols in Visakhapatnam the best way we do elsewhere,” Saptaranjan explains with out pausing from his work. “In Hyderabad and Rourkela, the place now we have been working for over a decade, the requests are for vivid, shiny idols. Right here, the idols look nearer to how they historically was. Simply clay, form, with just some definition across the eyes and ornaments. If a buyer needs some element highlighted, we use turmeric to create a gentle yellow tint.”

The workshop holds rows of idols in two sizes — three and 5 toes in peak — lined up for drying within the humid coastal air. Every idol, unadorned and quiet in its presence, displays a gradual shift in how festivals are noticed. In contrast to the plaster of Paris idols that flood the markets yearly with artificial paints and synthetic elaborations, the idols at Sankalpa Artwork Village are made completely from pure supplies.

It’s this return to a slower, extra rooted strategy that the inventive head of Sankalp Artwork Village, Jameelya Akula, is working to foster. “This yr, we’re making 70 idols and are taking pre-orders,” she says.

The idols are made to dissolve rapidly and safely in water, leaving no residue and inflicting no hurt to marine life, an necessary consideration for a coastal metropolis like Visakhapatnam that has seen the devastating results of water air pollution throughout post-immersion clean-up drives.

“We needed to transcend simply promoting an idol. Festivals weren’t at all times about consumption and plastic. They had been about supplies folks discovered round them, about their farms, their weavers, their rivers. That’s the connection we wish to rebuild,” Jameelya provides.

Consistent with this strategy, every Ganesh idol being made at Sankalpa this yr is accompanied by a rigorously assembled ‘sustainable platter’. This features a khadi dhoti woven at Sankalpa’s unit, a packet of native rice selection, organically processed jaggery and a palm-leaf umbrella for the idol handcrafted by native artisans. Every component on this platter displays a small ecosystem of expertise and livelihoods, usually neglected within the city festive market.

“The palm umbrellas are made by artisans close by, a few of whom have practically given up their craft. The jaggery and rice come from small farmers who domesticate with out chemical fertilisers. The khadi is handwoven,” Jameelya says. “This was not created to market a product. It’s meant to remind folks what was at all times there.”

This yr, Jameelya additionally plans to carry workshops within the weeks main as much as the competition. These will introduce kids and adults to the making of ‘seed Ganeshas’, small clay idols embedded with seeds. After immersion in a small pot or backyard, these idols can germinate. “The idol mustn’t simply disappear. It ought to proceed. That was at all times the concept behind immersion in water that returned to fields or wells. The clay nourished the earth once more,” says Jameelya.

On the workshop, the three artisans proceed their work with minimal interruptions. The idols, even of their unfinished kind, carry a readability of function. There may be nothing elaborate about them, however the attraction lies of their uncooked kind. Of their pure end, they invite the viewer to rethink what celebration means. Maybe much less about grandeur and extra about reminiscence, soil and the act of shaping one thing by hand.

(For orders for clay Ganesha idols, contact 7830904646).

Printed – July 23, 2025 03:56 pm IST