Kumartuli or Kumortuli is located in the northern part of the city of Kolkata . The locality is a traditional habitat of the potters for nearly three hundred years. The potters or the artisans or the artists settled here during the restructuring of the Kolkata colonial region by the British East India Company . Earning a livelihood by making earthen pots and utensils first they gradually shifted to the making of the idols of Gods and Goddesses for various festivals round the year. With increasing demand and quality of their creations over time the artisans became famous and Kumartuli came to be known as the hub of idol makers supplying thousands of idols, particularly of Goddess Durga , to whole of the state of West Bengal and to NRIs of around 90 countries across the globe. At least three months before Durga Puja , the biggest festival of West Bengal and one of the biggest across Eastern India, more than five hundred workshops come alive with hyper activity day and night. Fir...
Someone laments inconsolably, ‘It’s no time to go! He had so many things to do!’ which is quite a natural reaction in matters concerning death, irrespective of the age or the state of health or the circumstances surrounding the person. The pain is always there, only the intensity might vary depending on how close to heart the person is to us, personally or otherwise. No doubt, the personal loss is the most intense one in any tragedy, often leaving the bereaved unable to handle the pain. The screen icons or the celebrities become very close to us over the years even though we never meet him/her at a personal level and thus their passing-away leaves us grieving and in shock. The loss of Nana Patekar is a very intensely shocking pain to me at a personal level, although I never knew or met him personally; his screen images and performances endeared him to me over the decades till I last saw him in Houseful5 movie just months before. Born as Vishwanath Patekar in Maharashtra, Nana Patekar...