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...
The law enforcers, the police and other related agencies, wield immense power to utilize it for the protection and the betterment of the common people if they want to do so. But unfortunately, such powers are more often misused and so, we keep on hearing stories about police corruption from the petty level of taking bribes on any pretext to the highest level of politician-criminal-underworld nexus. This is a global phenomenon, not just limited to more prone countries like India. Such is the impact of police corruption in society that thousands of fictions in terms of thrillers written or movies or television series have been made all over the world since decades. In most commercial films in India, we see police personnel portrayed as horrendously brazen and sadistic characters. In the US and the West through the franchises of James Bond , Mission Impossible and The Bourne Identity among others we invariably confront a traitorous bad cop within the system. I cannot possibly mention v...