A festival dedicated to Lord Ganesh, the elephant faced deity is celebrated with great enthusiasm and devotion as a part of Hindu tradition in India. It is not just a festival to worship the Lord, but an opportunity to revive the lost art of idol making.
The artisans who have been doing idols for generations, start making them in various designs and sizes way before the festival starts. A source of livelihood, the idols are created using mud, clay and other materials like porcelain. The day of the festival marks the idol to be decorated and worshiped, followed by bidding a farewell to the Lord by dissolving it in a water body.
The artisans bring the mud and clay needed for the idol making from the riverside banks. They make the idols with great devotion and artistic chivalry only to their creatives being dissolved in water again after the festival. They say what comes, goes back to its roots. The mud is once again reunites inside the lake bed only to come next year, in form of a spiritual identity.
