Portrait of a city

Went to Kumartuli today. That's the place where most of the goddess idols are made. Off the main road, it is a narrow alley with workshops and artisans' shops lined on either side. The main road is busy, fairly crowded and noisy but the moment I stepped into the artisans alley, found a divine silence in the air. I looked around and could still see the noisy main road but in the alley, the sounds are entirely different. Sound of a hammer hitting a nail, an axe splitting a log, someone's hand splashing water, slurrrrrping sound of someone sipping tea and occasional sound of a hand rickshaw puller's bell. Each shop is like a long, narrow passage with idols of various gods and goddesses in different stages of completion. Some are half painted whereas some still wet of the mud, in some, the trails of the artisans fingers clearly visible in the muddy body of the idols. These artisans have been doing this for years - some for generations. Though their business is round the year but this time is when they are the busiest - the biggest festival (Durga Puja) is just about a month away and a few dozen shops here are busy preparing supplies for the entire city, and sometimes even for people outside the city and country. It was a peaceful delight to watch the skilled artisan shaping up legs, arms and face. It made me wonder who created whom, a question that has multiple theories supported by different schools of thought. As I walked through the alley with my camera in hand, it started raining quite hard. I had to run and take shelter in one of the workshops. It was a blessing in disguise for me. I wanted to do some rain photography for quite some time.
Making of idols is a multi-step process. First they create the skeleton with hay and grass. Then the coat it with mud and define the shape of the body and face. The finesse with which it is done, is just incredible. Some of the faces look too real. The mud that is used itself has an interesting story. The first lump of mud used for the idol of the goddess is taken from the porch of a prostitute. That has been the tradition since ages. There are multiple theories behind this; one of them considers the soil of a prostitute's porch the purest. Prostitution is probably as old as civilization itself. During old times, they were looked upon with respect by the society. They sacrifice their everything to please others. They served their fellow human beings without questioning them about their caste, creed, colour or sect. All humans were equal to them. They were considered pure at heart. It is that purity, without which a Goddess was never considered complete and hence the first lump of soil from their porch. There are multiple other theories, each of them equally thoughtful.
The photo walk ended with 4 of us barging in into a visible very old house that stood hidden somewhere in the narrow alleys of the old city. We asked the owner's permission to shoot the house as it looked just incredible. He told us that the house is about 200 years old and we were not surprised. The gentleman was quite co-operative and gladly posed for us for more than an hour. There was professional photographer amongst us he clicked the house and the gentleman to his heart's content!

some more photos from today shared here
will be putting up some selected ones on my photopost and flickr later.