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...
Article first published as Politics of the Beg Word on Technorati. Politics has myriad shades and colors. Just now in India it has achieved another unique dimension—the politics of begging! Rahul Gandhi, the youthful general secretary of the Congress party who has commanded tremendous youth following all over the country of late, was in Uttar Pradesh to kickstart the party’s campaign for the forthcoming assembly elections of the state. He lambasted the ruling party there for total lack of economic development and for resembling almost a mafia rule. He went on with his diatribe by saying that had there been some developmental progress the people there would not have been forced to migrate to other states and beg for work. There was an inherent truth in what he said about the state and it had to be analyzed in the context of an opposition party leader addressing an election rally. But all hell broke loose because of just one word ‘beg’! Rahul Gandhi must have said it wit...