Bagbazar and the Idol Makers

Yesterday was an experience. Krista and I agreed to cross the river and explore Bagbazar, a small village up the banks of the Hooghly entirely devoted to the art of sculpture.  Our guide was Doe Doe- a smart little french woman in her seventies with a snow white bob and round frame glasses-she stands at 5'1'' on a tall day. She speaks French, English, and Spanish and usually all three at the same time. She is a force of nature. The self-proclaimed "warden" of our guest house, she likes the kitchen to be left spotless and has been known to drag guests out of bed if they have left dishes in the sink. She lives on the bottom floor and she knows everything.

Doe Doe has been returning to Kolkata every year for 12 years running. She has amazing stories and I have plagued her with questions from the minute we met-which I think is why she likes me so much. She forgets our names every morning-they are difficult for her to pronounce-so she refers to us as "My Dear Americans" as though she were making a formal address to the whole of the United States.  So, anyway, she offered to lead us across the river yesterday and we took her up on it. She knows her way around, and watching her handle the locals is like watching a little white rabbit push around a wolf pack-men here know better than to hassle a french woman.

We rode a crowded bus for twenty minutes, boarded the first boat, stopped fifteen minutes later to exchange at the Howrah Railway station, then boarded the second boat bound for the Bagbazar dock. The water of the Hooghly is pea green. Along it's banks the locals still bathe, wash dishes and cremate the dead in the ghats, or stairs of stone-some of them dating back to the British colonial period of India. A cremation was taking place on the right side, only men attend-the women left to weep at home. Below the ceremony a little boy ran naked and laughing through the shallows and just to the left carnival rides were in full swing- there is no fine line here between the reverential and the commonplace. Wilted flower garlands dotted the water's, surface and caught in the  fishermen's nets, the perimeter of which was marked by small broken pieces of white styrofoam. Most unusual were the great mounds of garbage that covered the stairs of every ghat, making them impossible to access and forcing the locals to cut through the brush of the bank instead.

We walked up the old planks of the dock and into the little tired village of Bagbazar where everyone, literally everyone does one thing- they make idols. All of the buildings in this village are small-people don't require much space and are content to eat,work and sleep all under the roof of a 12 x 12 shed. Numerous tiled shrines smelling of urine and incense and painted chalky pink and safety orange lined the right side of the dirt path. We walked through the main street at 3 oclock and most residents seemed to be asleep, stretched out in the beds of trucks and slouching in doorways. We turned right into the fourth alley and found a man painting the face a plaster effigy. He freehanded the detailed eyes and curved red lips, his work was perfect. He had probably drawn those lines thousands of times. The rest of the town are stalls, enclosed on three sides and facing in to little dirt alleys.

Each stall housed a different stage of the process. Hay in huge bails is collefted and shaped into the cores of bodies, limbs and heads creating scare-crow like figures- hundreds of them in uniform size. Next, clay is made from the bed of the Hooghly-sifted and worked until is becomes malleable. It dries like plaster. Then an artist begins the painting process by first coating the form in white then adding shadows in lichen green and burnt orange. Walking through those stalls with pale limbs reaching out was eerie! Another artist added the detail-elaborate decorative paintings in jewel and primary colors. Faces emerged. Hair also was made at that step- black seaweed is pulled like cotton and rapped into ropes around sticks to dry forming perfect spiral curls which hung down to the waists of both the gods and goddesses. A tailor dressed them in rich fabric. And finally decorations of thin metal headpieces,gold bangles, and plastic spears radiating from the shoulders were added. The result was impressive and unsettling. Kali was wheeled by on a wooden cart, her tounge dripping with blood, her black body stood on top of her decapitated victim. We moved out of the way to let her pass by.The idols will be used all over the city in temples, ceremonies, and festivals. They will be worshipped. The will be offered sacrifices. Mud and straw is suddenly elevated to an exalted position and the line between the holy and the familiar is blurred. Fascinating process.

Other side notes-Krista was followed down the alley by a snarling street dog -we are paranoid about rabies here and Krista pulled out her mase. We came well prepared. A drunk man hassled us for a bit but Doe-Doe handled it with the help of a local woman. Took us two hours to get home but quite an adventure!

Work was great today. Ghita cant wait to see the photos we took of Songhita, which we will develop tomorrow. Our errand earned us an uprgrade in title, from "friend" to "sister" in Bengali. She will be difficult to leave.

Miss you all,

Ev