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 The Indian Rash Over Rushdie! on Technorati. The celebrated author of Midnight’s Children , Salman Rushdie’s proposed visit to India as a keynote speaker in the famous Jaipur Literature Festival (JLT) supposed to start from today did not make the country happy. This was despite him being a Person of Indian Origin (PIO). What should have been a matter of pride for the largest democracy of the world turned into the old Indian rash surfacing again in all its sore features. India being a pluralistic society with various linguistic, religious, cultural and ethnic communities the chances are very high for any particular section to get offended by creative works or plain statements made by a particular author or journalist or filmmaker or even politician. In majority of such cases none of the supposedly offended community happened to be even aware of the content of the cause of offense. The only result of this rash is that of a growing wave of intoleranc...