Preparations for Ganesh festival are in full swing in the city and the idol-makers are putting in their best to prepare idols. A family living at laxmi Nagar on Ayodhya by-pass road is preparing Ganesh idols by clay since last six decades.
The speciality of this idol-maker family is that people start booking with them before two months in advance of the festival. Ganesh festival begins this year on August 29 and would be concluded on September 8.
Upendra Agarkar, who heads this family, said that “we make clay idols and as clay idol making takes a lot of time we do not do open business of the idols. People knowing us and the nearby locality residents book their idols with us about a couple of months in advance of the festival and we make idols only for those who book it in advance”.
All the family members are involved in this art of making idols and every year they can prepare only 200 – 250 idols, he added. Idols of Ganesha are being made few months ahead of the 10 day festival where they are taken through the streets in a procession accompanied by dancing and singing, to be immersed in a river or lake symbolising a ritual to see off for his journey towards his abode ‘Kailash’.