While the 10-day festival of festival lord Ganesha’s arrival is just at the door step several artists in the city are involved in creating beautiful and attractive Ganesha idols to celebrate this festival with a lot of spirituality and divinity.
Going creative this year, the artists are creating huge idols out of thermocol. The artists are giving these idols an artistic touch to add more zeal in the festival.
The preparation of these thermocol idols begin 2-3 months prior to the day of Ganesh Chaturthi. The size of this idol varies from few inches to over 25 feet in different parts of the country. The artists of the city are preparing the idols almost 10 to 15 feet high.
Rakesh who prepares the Ganesha’s idol with thermocol at Mangalwara says, “It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to prepare this idol as it is not as easy as the clay idol.”
Elaborating further he said, “Giving proper finishing touch to it and then colouring the statue is a big task. So we start preparing the statues 2-3 months before.”
Notably, the artists from Bengal and South India have also landed in the city to give a spectacular touch in the Ganesha idols. The clay ideols are also being prepared in the city for the pandals.
The artisans of the city have almost completed the work with the clay ideols of lord Ganesha. A ceramist who makes the idols of Ganesha in bulk at Mata Mandir Sumeet Prajapati says, “We have already completed 35 idols of the Ganesha and some are incomplete, but they would be completed soon.” As the team viva walked through the workplace, many forms of Ganesha were seen resting there. Almost 10 feet Ganesha have already been prepared while some of the idols were kept under the sky for being dried.
Sumeet further said, “We have not used Plaster of Paris (POP) in the big idols that are needed to be immersed in the lower lake. We have used the black soil, wood pieces and the raw material that would not pollute the water. Further, the colours that are used to paint the idol of Ganesha do not contain any chemicals.”
On asking about the eco-friendly Ganesha idols, Raju said, “We are 15 people together working on these different forms of Ganesh and we have used only natural colours so that no kind of pollution could be spread in the city” he further added.
The artists are creating all forms including dancing forms, resting, Ganesha with Chakra, Ganesha with nine hands, Smiling, and sitting forms as well. Some forms are being prepared on the demand of the customers.