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Showing posts from June, 2014

Special Feature!

Kumartuli—The Workshop Of The God Makers In Kolkata! And Durga Puja!

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...

Shades Of Sunset!

      And Then The Moon.....

Assam: Load Shedding Of The Third Kind!

Power supply in the state of Assam presently cannot just be said as erratic, it is atrocious. It cannot just be said as load shedding, because in load shedding there is a method. This is madness that has no method. It is raging across the state, although more tellingly in lower and central Assam where rains have been scanty over the last two months and people are faced with oppressively humid heat conditions. The sky remains cloudy and no rain falls eventually, not even welcome winds blow across. If you are inside you sweat on with a severe kind of consistency. If you are out you are almost roasted alive. Those who can afford an inverter still sweat at the thought of how to charge that relief-giving unit, because for that you need power. Evenings are even worse because gleeful swarms of mosquitos add to your dark sticky woes. Small time operators who depend on their desktops for the daily bread are finding it hard to survive. Power supply comes for five minutes and goes nuts for 2-3 h...