The new theme of worship

Theme-based puja pandals in Kolkata get innovative and bizarre this year.

Forget the traditional look, it is "theme-based" Durga puja pandals that are in fashion in and around Kolkata this season.

Though "themes" have been popular since the past decade or so, they continue to take bizarre turns as puja organisers desperately innovate to attract the crowds of pandal-hoppers and, of course, corporate sponsors.

This year, the pandal at the Kailash Bose Sarbojonin has been done up with buttons. Around five crore buttons in various colours have been painstakingly stuck together to create religious motifs and scenes from Hindu mythology.

At the Karbagan Sarbojonin, Paritosh Talukdar has made similar artistic use of empty medicine wrappers. At the Dhakuria Sarbojonin, paper bags and envelopes have been used, while at Uttarpalli Kalupara, in the same locality, pearls have been stuck on digitally printed Jamini Roy paintings.

Moving on, sweet corn is the theme of this year's Dharmatala Netaji Sporting Club puja in Kasba "" the raw corns have been used as decoration for Durga Ma's ornaments and sari border while the hair from the corn cobs have become her tresses.

Haridevpur, a middle-class locality in Kolkata, has a plethora of these unusual theme pujas. There's the Haridevpur Vivekananda Sporting Club, where 15,000 pagris of different kinds have been used.

Further down the winding country lane is Haridevpur Adarsha Samiti where nails "" of steel, copper and iron "" make up friezes depicting Hindu, Muslim, Jain and Buddhist icons. Some distance away is 41 Palli where combs of various kinds are displayed.

Neighbourhood pride, of course, is an important reason why puja organisers resort to unusual themes. Artist Tapas Das, from the Adarsha Samiti puja pandal, says, "Our aim is to ensure that Haridevpur figures on the list of important pujas around Kolkata."

A popular pandal is Haridevpur Ajeya Sanghati that was adjudged the best puja pandal in the Asian Paints Sharad Samman awards in 2002, for its pandal built around the pat paintings of Bengal. It won the award again the following year with its theme of "Mati-te Alo-te" where soil from different areas of the state was brought together in a symbolical depiction of "unity in diversity". Corporates are willing to pay as much as Rs 50,000 for advertising at this pandal.

Theme pujas have also developed as an important mechanism for neighbourhood bonding. At the Adarsha Samiti, all the men have lent a hand in hammering in the nails.

"Last year, too, when we used tamarind seeds, all the men chipped in after work or whenever they had the time to painstakingly stick all the seeds on the plywood," says Das. Adarsha Samiti, of course, has a relatively smaller puja pandal with a modest budget of about Rs 2.5 lakh.

The bigger pujas, of course, outsource the conception and the execution of themes to "artists" like Amar Sarkar (Ajeya Sanghati), Sanatan Dinda, Bhabatosh Sutar (who transformed the Behala Srishti Sangha puja) "" many of whom are fine arts students.

Interestingly at Ajeya Sanghati, wives of club officials take the lead in caring for the party of 11 "Gond" villagers who had come from Pattangarh village in Madhya Pradesh to build a hut with mud walls and dried-fruit-shell roof inside which the Durga idol was housed.

In a way, these pujas have also helped popularise little known folk-art forms from remote corners of the country.

Sarkar, for instance, had recreated a Bastar village at the Bosepukur Sarbojonin in Kasba a few years ago, while the Ajeya Sanghati pandal in 2004 was a Nagaland village which used motifs from the state's four different tribes. Another dying art form that has seen a resurgence with theme pujas is that of pat-chitra.

Bibhash Mondal at Haridevpur's 41 palli has used the little-known dashavatar pat of the Kalna-Katoa region to decorate the panels above the goddess. Artists have also shown great ingenuity in drawing upon domestic art forms.

A few years ago, Talukdar dressed the Karbargan Durga in garments made from dried and woven atri grass, a kind of long-blade grass found near rivers and ponds in the countryside.

The decoration of puja pandals is drawing on elements of local, traditional, folk and high art forms, giving employment to craftspeople.

Artifacts from Amar Sarkar's Bastar village were sold as individual pieces, and netted as much as Rs 2.5 lakh. It may take a while before puja pandals gain the respect art installations, but in the puja season the magic has just begun.