A Walk In CR Park: How Delhi’s Durga Idols Come To Life

Last Sunday, I found myself in the backyard of the now-defunct Chandralok Cinema in G Block, CR Park. Among the many artisans who run the idol-making workshop there was Naru Gopal Pal from Krishnagar, West Bengal. He was making the fingers of the Durga idol, carving them from the soft clay which is used to carve the gods and goddesses.

The theatre had closed around 2002, and the workshop is believed to have been there from the late 2000s, with documentary evidence from 2009. Being born and brought up in Kolkata, Kumartuli, on the banks of the river Hooghly, is my immediate association when it comes to seeing Durga idols taking shape. This time, being in Delhi, I wanted to see how the same art is practised here.

The artisans here come to Delhi only before the idol-making starts and leave for their hometowns once the season is over. Thus, they divide their time between this and the harvest season back home. Manik Pal, who is also a part of this group, has been coming to Delhi since 1995-96, with an initial work hub in Tughlakabad.

Before CR Park, There Was Timarpur

However, while walking through the workshop, I began to wonder: if this place started in the late 2000s, what is the history before that? Accompanying me were Jaya Ray, an international trade finance banker, and design educator and heritage storyteller Anindita Roy, both of whom have been integral to the Kali Bari Society and conduct pre-Puja storytelling walks in the region. 

They informed me that the local workshops, be it the Chandralok or the CR Park Kali Bari Workshop, were predated by Timarpur, from where the idols for the very first Durga Puja in 1970 were made. Timarpur is North Delhi’s older Bengali enclave, and has Delhi’s second-oldest Durga Puja, dating back to 1913. The other options were shipping the idol from Kumartuli or Benaras by train.

By this time, we had walked over to CR Park Kali Bari. The preparations there were in full swing, with the bamboo scaffolding of the pandal being put in place and the workshop busy with painting and shaping the idols. The sky was a bright blue with cottony clouds, characteristic of sharat or autumn.

CR Park’s first Durga Puja was held in 1970, in an open plot opposite what is now Market No. 1. Jaya and Anindita told me that there were only two shops in that area back then, and the colony was called East Pakistan Displaced Persons (EPDP) Colony. This was later renamed Chittaranjan Park. Published records cite 1972, while community records cite 1978, for the final notification of the change.

As we went around, the Vishwakarma idols were being given the final touch and the Durga idols were taking shape, one part at a time. I met Gobindo Nath, who was drawing the eyes of Durga’s son, Kartik. Understanding the history of the space and observing the brilliant artistry turned out to be an immersive experience. Smaller decorative parts were kept in the sun to dry, as these would later be used to adorn the ornaments, garments and weapons of the idol.

500 Kg Of Flowers And A Kitchen That Starts At 2 Am

This workshop was established around 1973-74 as a Kali Mandir-supported initiative, with a space to host the seasonal artisans who come during Ratha Yatra and leave for their homes around March. The first artisan was Salil Bhattacharjee, who was part of the workshop from 1975-1987. He had started with 2-3 idols at that time. Now, this workshop makes around 800 idols annually, with more than 300 Puja committees ordering from the CR Park workshops. Idols are also dispatched to the US and UK from this very workshop one month before Puja.

The scale naturally led me to ask about the source of the raw materials. I knew the soil used to make the idols was not any other regular soil, but a special sacred combination. Here too, it was no different. The punya maati, or sacred soil, which is collected from riverbanks, pilgrimage spots and brothel doorsteps, is mixed with the local soil and etel maati (alluvial sticky soil) and brought directly from the banks of the river Hooghly in Kolkata when the artisans come during Ratha Yatra. This is then mixed with large quantities of maati sourced from neighbouring states, mainly Punjab and Jhajjar, Haryana, as Delhi’s soil is not suited for idol-making. The straw, or khor, which supports the foundation, comes from different districts of Uttar Pradesh.

No Puja is complete without flowers, and a five-day Puja needs huge quantities of specific flowers not usually grown in the northern part of the country. Approximately 500 kg of flowers over five days [∼100 kg per day] is air-freighted from West Bengal as early as 2 am. It includes 108 lotuses for Maha Ashtami Sandhi Puja, aparajita, roktojoba and fresh shiuli or night-flowering jasmine. Daily offerings include garlands of 108 bel leaves, 108 roktojoba and thousands of aparajita.

The Kali Bari Durga Puja alone sees around 25,000 devotees, and special Puja bhog is prepared for them. Cooking starts here around 2-3 am at night, overseen by committee members and volunteers. Apart from thalis, about 1,000 kg of bhog is distributed over five days. Between 300 kg and 1,000 kg of bhog is prepared daily, feeding 5,000 to 7,000 devotees per day. In addition, decorative sholapith ornaments, straw and dhak (drums) are brought from West Bengal during the days of the Puja, with the drums played by performers from Malda and Murshidabad.

Discussing the scale of the crowd and food, we landed up in front of the randhanshala, or the main kitchen of the space. During Puja, this place is abuzz with huge cauldrons of bhog khichudi and other delicacies being prepared. I could close my eyes and imagine this quiet place turning all festive and crowded in a matter of weeks. Durga Puja, after all, draws not only the Bengalis of CR Park but people from all communities who come here to be a part of this spectacle.

The Return to the Earth

I also saw the empty reservoir which is filled with water on the day of the bisarjan, or the immersion of the idol. While the decorative elements are taken off the idol, the rest of the soil gradually dissolves in the ground below. At the end, a big part of this festival is an acute realisation of the circularity of life, for the ritual of bisarjan in Kolkata involves immersing the idol in the river Hooghly. The soil mixes with the water and, eventually, next year’s soil, which is taken from the river, completes the cycle.

Since the UNESCO recognition of Durga Puja, Kolkata has ridden on the bandwagon of theme-based Puja, with every pandal and idol having a specific theme as the basis of their decoration, ranging from historic buildings to social messages to more abstract philosophical concepts. CR Park and Delhi in general have maintained a more or less strong preference for traditional idol styling, within that demand being now for more artistic and classy designs.

As Durga Puja continues to grow in grandeur and popularity, the idol-making workshops continue to remain the backbone. Rising costs, limited space, changing weather patterns and generational shifts in interest are some of the many constraints within which the artisans continue to bring to life the idol of Goddess Durga and her family.

(With inputs from Jaya Ray and Anindita Roy, who helped with the research; going through field notes, Kali Mandir Society and newspaper archives.)

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