The Potters' Quarter That Supplies a City's Goddesses

Most of the clay images that fill Kolkata's thousands of Durga Puja pandals each year are made in Kumartuli, a specific old potters' quarter on the banks of the Hooghly river where generations of artisan families have specialised in building the elaborate multi-figure clay images from river clay, straw armatures and natural fibres over months of work leading up to the festival, a concentrated traditional craft neighbourhood whose seasonal output supplies not only local Kolkata pandals but images shipped to Durga Puja celebrations organised by Bengali communities across India and increasingly abroad.

The economics of the festival now extend well beyond devotional craft: municipal and state authorities in West Bengal have documented and promoted Durga Puja as a major contributor to the regional economy, supporting employment in idol-making, pandal construction, lighting and decoration, textiles for new clothes bought specifically for the festival, and tourism from visitors who travel specifically to see the most elaborate pandals, a scale of organised commercial activity around a religious festival that state tourism bodies now actively study and publicise as a significant seasonal economic event in its own right, alongside its recognised standing as an artistic and community achievement.