As the weather gets better I am planning my walks to understand this city I call home now. Opened up the season with a pre-Durga Puja walk with Delhi By Foot yesterday. My way of trying to get a hang of how to do pandal hopping during Durga Puja, supposedly the thing to do in Delhi in October.
The walk in CR park ended up being an insider’s look on the frenzy as Bengali’s get ready for the most important festival of the year. The bazars were overflowing with people shopping in the book fair; buying the special Pujo magazines; wandering through Pujo mela bursting at the sims with stalls of clothes, accesories, home goods; preparing for cultural programs, dance competitions, and last minute planning meetings.
The pandals are getting ready for the arrival of the goddess and her family.
The idols are getting ready at the Kumhor next to the Kali badi in CR Park. Some are being created in the pandals. The visit to the workshop where artisans were preparing the idols reminded me of our childhood visits to the Dhondphale workshop in Rastapeth before Ganesh festival. My father in a bid to avoid the fetival crowds used to take us to the workshop in lieu of the pandal hopping later.
The idol making is completely different in this case however and I am glad I could see behind the curtain work going on. Unlike the lone Ganesh, Durga Puja idols we saw were created as a family – Durga with her lion, flanked by Ganesh with the mouse, Kartikeya with his peacok, and the sisters Lakshmi and Saraswati. The whole family is created on a backdrop built with bamboo. The torso, limbs and body parts, unlike the ganesh murti are first created in hay and then finished with multiple applications of clay of various viscocity. Most of the idols were going to be dressed in actual cloth so only the visible parts were being painted. This was new and different as Ganesh idols come ready with the clothes and accessories created in clay and painted to show the fall of the cloth.
The idols in one of the CR park pandals are ready but still need color, clothing and accesories. The artisans from Kolkata have been working right here since August. When we visited the pandal they were creating paper mache decorations that depict the art forms of Bengal. Organizers urged us not to post photos and ruin the surprise. Looking forward to visit some of the pandals starting saptami to see the finished look.
devayani tirthali 
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