Eco Ganapati

Eco Ganapati
Chavath or Ganesh Chaturthi, is just around the corner. It is Goa’s favourite festival that promotes harmony and love for nature. While Lokmanya Tilak was instrumental in reforming the traditional Ganesh celebrations into a mass movement for social consciousness, it is an unassuming Goan, Mr. Puttuswamy Gudigar who is carrying forward its message through his work of sculpting and training artists / enthusiasts from all backgrounds to make Ganesh idols. This traditional stone craftsman funded his Masters in Archeology by selling idols right from a tender age of 7. He worked with the National Institute of Oceanography for some years and gave it all up to return to his passion with rock art. Having since instituted Shilpaloka, Goa’s only studio for traditional sculpture, he has been roped in by the Goa Handicrafts, Rural and Small Scale Industries Development Corporation (GHRSSIDC) to conduct a workshop for making eco-Ganesh idols. And the motley group of trainees includes not only potters but also masons, children and even women who are trying their hand at making clay idols. With the Government of Goa bringing in a ban on idols made with Plaster of Paris (POP) since 2006, the use of clay has become mandatory with all local artisans. This put a spoke in the wheel of opportunists who would import POP idols from outside the State thus trying to have a slice of the pie, and business has only got better for traditional khumbhars (potters). Gudigar voices his concern about the environment and exhorts all to practise the use of natural items that are biodegradable to make the festival eco-sensitive and non-polluting, a fitting tribute to the elephant-headed God of ecology. Coming from a family of traditional sculptors, he has the scientific know-how of the art and lays emphasis on hand-sculpted clay idols which not only displays the skill of the artist but also discourages the dependence on artificial moulds that are prepared by a master and replicated by unskilled minions. Using moulds, even if made of natural materials, should be discouraged and use of natural colours like vegetable dyes that are water soluble must be mandatory. The makhar or seat for the idol should be made with wood, bamboo or such like in lieu of thermocol and plastic. The matoli or canopy above the idol which traditionally contains different fruits, vegetables and flowers representing nature’s biodiversity is an aspect unique to the Goan Ganeshotsav and these items could perhaps be given to charities instead of being immersed with the idol. Many Goan families across the State already practice an eco-friendly festival tradition by using idols made out of metal, sketches of Ganapati on paper (many families from villages in Ponda taluka use paper Ganeshas) and papier mache that culminate with a symbolic immersion and reusing of the idol the following year. These customs evolved with either the persecution during colonial regime, lack of the family idol and many a times due to non-availability of raw material. Even community mandals, like the ones in Marcel are known to use ideas and materials from everyday life, like the produce of the coconut tree, areca nuts and cane, to name a few, in the making of the sarvajanik (community) idol. With metros in the rest of the country grappling with the post-visarjan (immersion) horrors of decaying flowers, dead fish, strewn fragments of POP Ganesh idols that get washed ashore being light-weight and slower to dissolve, islands of floating plastic bags stuffed with garlands and offerings and contamination of water bodies with heavy metals like nickel, lead and chromium on account of the metal-laden synthetic paints that earlier coated the idols, Goa is surely way ahead in its eco-consciousness whereby its people take from nature’s bounty and give back in a more sustainable manner. Ganapati bappa moraya! Phudcchya varshi ECO yaa!