He has one hundred and eight names, and is beloved among Hindu gods. Ganesha, also called Ganapati, is worshipped as the god of success, wisdom, knowledge, and prudence. This wise and playful god, considered the destroyer of evil and obstacles, is always invoked first in any Hindu festival.
Ganesh Chathurthi, the ten day festival that celebrates the arrival of Ganesha, with his mother Goddess Parvathi/Gauri to Earth from his heavenly home at Mount Kailash, has always been celebrated grandly in Maharashtra. People welcome and worship Lord Ganesha both in their homes and in the gorgeously decorated sarvajanik, public pandals.
Have you ever wondered who creates the beautiful Ganesha idols that are worshipped with such fervour and devotion? What is the process through which artistic ‘murtikars’ create exquisite statues showing many different forms of Lord Ganesha?
Chembur Pulse visited the oldest kaarkhana of Chembur where statues of Ganesha are crafted. The Shree Ganesh Shilpalkala, located in a quiet by-lane of Ghatla village, was started 45 years ago by Krishna Patil, a gold medalist graduate from Mumbai’s Sir J. J. School of Arts, who has a degree in Sculpture and Modeling. His workshop has three different work areas. It is a hive of activity, and in the first area, we could see workers kneading and preparing the grey shadu mati (clay) while others were carefully removing ornate plaster of paris throne backdrops from their moulds. In the main work area of the kaarkhana, there were dozens of statues of different sizes in various stages of completion. It is here that the bodies of the statues are removed from their moulds. The hands of each of the idols, (some holding a conch shell, mace, or axe) are made separately, and then attached to the body later. Finally, the idols are painted and embellished. The eyes of each statue are always ‘opened’ or painted last, and this is a job requiring great skill as the eyes give expression to the idol’s face.
The elevated top floor of the workshop, where the completed idols are stored, is a veritable feast for the eyes, with its dazzling array of colourful statues portraying the many facets of Ganesha.
Krishna Patil sources the raw material for his statues from the town of Pen, in Maharashtra’s Raigad district. Every year, on the auspicious Gudi Padva day in April, Patil sculpts a small Ganesha to mark the beginning of a new year. He worships this Ganesha to invoke blessings for his creative endeavours. At the end of June, this little Ganesha, smeared with sindhur, is carried to his workshop, and worshipped by all the workers before work starts. This ritual is followed faithfully every day.
Most of the idols in Patil’s workshop are made from plaster of paris that is poured into moulds, but he says that he does get requests from customers for unusual, bespoke idols. He fashions these idols from clay. While Patil tries to use eco friendly paints for his statues, he explains that the glittering jewels, throne, and other embellishments that are so much a part of the statues, have necessarily to be painted with metallic paints.
A majority of the statues that we saw in the Shree Ganesh Shilpalkala workshop were between one and two feet, with only a few touching four feet. This year, like in 2020, the year that the Covid pandemic hit the world, the government of Maharashtra has capped the height of idols at four feet for public Ganpati pandals and two feet for home pujas. Krishna Patil, like many other artists, was badly hit last year, during the first wave of the pandemic, especially since he used to make idols that were between ten and fifteen feet tall for many of Chembur’s public pandals.
Krishna Patil is helped in his business by his son, Harshal Patil, a consummate artist and like his father, a graduate from the Sir J. J. School of Art. Harshal’s six year old daughter Swara was also in the workshop, quietly observing the goings on with interest. Her proud grandfather mentioned that the little girl is already an accomplished artist who draws beautifully. This is hardly surprising, surrounded as she is by the exceptional artistry of her grandfather and father – an artistry that has enriched the community of Chembur, and brought immense joy to its residents for decades.
