Letting the good go, for the better

Nowadays we celebrate our religious festivals with temporary installations (pandals) around us decorated in various themes, where the idol is worshipped in different forms, sometimes much different from the one we visualized through our mythology. There is even a carnival organized in Kolkata where the different award-winning Durga idols are showcased after Durga Puja.

On this note, every year, I witness a buzz going around on social media, discussing if these grand works of art should be preserved in some sort of museum. It is indeed painful to see sculptures made through such a level of artistry and toil get washed off in the water.

There is another group who feel that idol immersion (using non-polluting methods) should not be stopped.?

The visarjan ritual symbolizes the reality of life that revolves around life and death, by re-establishing the concept of destruction after every construction, because nothing is permanent and that change is the only constant. The old has to make way for the new. That is the reason, every year, we find new idols getting made using contemporary artistic concepts.?

My stand on this is totally from the viewpoint of the businesses we support. The religious festivals provide a spike in demand for our micro-enterprises, especially the potters and sculptors. Their business depends in a big way on the practice of immersion. ?If we break the cyclic pattern of idol-making the market will stagnate and force them to opt for other business strategies. And, as with any other micro-enterprise, that will not be an easy thing to do.

Instead, I would prefer more stories of the likes of Sankary Pal, an idol maker from the Hooghly district of West Bengal. Every year during the festive season she approaches VFS for enhanced loan approval so that she can take in more orders. It is fast approaching a level when she would outgrow the micro-enterprise definition and move to the category of small. That will indeed be a very happy occasion to celebrate, just like these festivals.

Psychologically, we get attached to beautiful things and it is difficult to let go of them. That is why most humans tend to clutter. Sometimes it also obstructs our rational thinking and makes us blind toward the bigger cause the material possession is serving. In this case, it is the stagnation of business growth for a specific segment.

The temporary sadness created after immersion, not only due to the loss of a work of art but also because the festival comes to an end, may be overcome with the fun of waiting for the next festival and the thought that there are many whose livelihood gets a boost from the act.