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...
He was on night duty on Kutarpada-Chahada road stretch of western Maharashtra that Tuesday night—the 10 th of April, 2012. He spent most of the night inside a bus and was assigned to drive a bus for the Kutarpada-Palghar route on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway early next morning. There was nothing special about the trip for a senior bus driver and he was ready like on any other day. Naushad Mohammed Hanif Shaikh had been working in the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) since the last 18 years as a driver. He had no record of even a single accident in those years of service and there was not a single passenger-complaint against him. Around sixty passengers boarded his bus for Palghar on that morning and the journey began on a bright note. It was smooth going and Naushad was handling the dangerous twists and turns in the hilly road track quite easily with the skill of an experienced bus driver. The destination was just over five kilometers away when the pain hit h...