s one walks out of the Metro station at Tollygunge, a prominent south Kolkata locality that is home to Bengal's film industry, one notices a slew of hoardings advertising pujas of various localities.
From a pandal and idols made entirely of iron nails to a puja themed on a Sundergarh temple complex, the variety is infinite. Then there's a pandal made of multi-colored coir, one that looks exactly like Parliament House, and another that has been made out of Bengal's traditional palm leaf handheld fans.
In 2002, two puja committees in Kolkata's Kasba area attracted immense publicity when they had their pandals and idols made out of broken gramophone records and sugarcane. The two pujas attracted millions of visitors and sponsors were delighted to be able to display their banners and hoardings to such a vast audience.
Ever since, sponsor interest in these two pujas has remained high, and one of them lived up to the billing in 2003 with a pandal made of broken clay cups.
Barun Mukherjee, a leading light of a prominent Tollygunge puja, says his brief this year was to secure enough sponsorship to cover the cost of the pandal, which resembles a Chola-dynasty temple, complete with gopurams and courtyard.
"We have invested nearly Rs 20 lakh in the pandal and its surrounding area alone, and we need major sponsorship to recover that," he says. A member of another award-winning puja committee in the same neighborhood says they have invested nearly Rs 50 lakh in the rural Bengal theme this year, and hope to recover nearly twice that amount.
Image: A traditional protima of Goddess Durga in a pandal in Kolkata
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