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...
Movie watching has always been a passion with us, particularly anywhere in India, ever since the discovery of motion pictures. This passion has always been independent of the conditions of the movie theaters or the environment of viewing. All of the cinema halls in India were single screen till about two decades back when multiplexes and malls came up in the major cities. In the small towns cinema halls or movie theaters were abysmal—people smoked and spat inside; they talked and roared with laughter anytime; seats were congested and there was an acute problem of craning necks; there was no air-conditioning and the wall or ceiling fans made it all the more noisier; no lounges outside, only holes around and most of the theaters looked like warehouses. However, we never complained about the lack of such amenities, mostly because we had no access to better environment to compare with. Of course, in the metros or in the major cities the theaters were much better, and once in a while we enj...