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...
It's out of piercing anguish and pain that makes me write these lines. The fundamental fact of life is that it has always been imperfect. Nothing about human beings and their society is perfect. Perfection always remains a dream, perhaps the way God desires. The institution of marriage was born and evolved out of sheer necessity. And, since a long time back this system had been marked as one of the most imperfect or even regressive ones. There were love marriages or arranged marriages , but it got proved again and again that there was no guarantee of happiness in either. Divorce thus has become the order of the day in almost all countries and with it women's liberty has been the thundering clarion call. Nothing wrong in that, absolutely. But, what have we got as a result? Mangled and chopped bodies of women in all corners of our country? Yes, you can put in immediately a reference about the horrible dowry deaths, the honor killings, subjugation of the fairer sex within the...