But What Happens to these Popular Artisans of Kumartuli after Durga Puja is Over?

Back in time, from the banks of the Hooghly River or while sailing through it near Rabindra Sarani, one could see elderly artisans working on the murtis. The scene depicted the tranquillity that prevailed throughout a ferry ride. It is the same silence that now echoes in the lanes of Kumartuli—once the mega affair of Kolkata, Durga Puja, is over—and the artisans are left again within their confined community, with less intervention: a feeling they have started to prefer.

This year's Durga Puja was not only as grand as usual, but also marked by calamity. Floods claimed a few lives, and controversies erupted over the morality of using the Air India plane crash as the theme for one of Bengal's pandals. Nevertheless, the festival ends, and the city returns to its daily routine, as always.

In this yearly cycle, however, something has changed for Kumartuli. Before the festival, their narrow lanes transform into a photographer’s paradise—at least for the past three to four years—thanks to the rise of short-form content on social media. After the festival, however, the area is left deserted, much like in earlier times.

Becoming Backgrounds

Every year, as Durga Puja preparations intensify, Kumartuli transforms into something its artisans may have envisioned—though not quite like this: a living museum for content. Amateur models pose between half-finished idols, influencers chase perfect light against clay torsos, and tourists wield cameras like weapons. The artisans, knee-deep in their craft, have become reluctant subjects in someone else’s content.

While the artisans were elated to see the popularity and would be happy to talk to the people about their work, they have now realised that it is not just their work being talked about. "We've become part of the show now. We wanted this for us, the fame, the marketing, the glory but not in this way, where we are background subjects and nothing ends up in our pockets from our art being used as aesthetic backgrounds by other people," admits Jatin Pal, weariness threading his voice as he carries a Lakshmi idol to his shop front, all of which had already gone viral all across Instagram, this season.

Photographers descend en masse, snapping furiously, their shutters clicking faster than any genuine interest in the craftsmen's livelihoods. By festive season's end, the images have circulated thousands of times across social media—viral moments of "authentic" Kolkata culture. The artisans? They're already forgotten, preparing for another year of obscurity.

Babu Pal, another experienced artisan who runs a larger workshop, observes the contradiction with resigned clarity. "We were never in a good space commercially, and we still aren't," he states bluntly, “We appreciate the attention, but we now don’t want it, we have had enough. We now need people to actually translate it beyond artificial attention” 

When the Waters Rose this Year

This September, nature delivered a particularly cruel blow. Torrential rains battered Kolkata just as Durga Puja loomed, flooding Kumartuli's workshops and leaving artisans scrambling. Knee-deep water invaded the narrow lanes, transforming workshops into disaster zones and damaging idols at various stages of completion.

"The other day, after the rains, I came home to find it waterlogged," recalls Babu Pal, his voice tight with remembered panic. "We were at our wits' end! How were we supposed to deliver idols like this? How would one prepare for Laxmi Puja and Kali Puja, which are right at the door?”

The mathematics of disaster are brutal. Months of meticulous work—the bamboo frameworks painstakingly constructed, layers of Hooghly River clay carefully applied, features delicately carved—all threatened by weather patterns increasingly erratic in an age of climate change. For artisans operating on razor-thin margins, such losses aren't merely inconvenient; they are potentially catastrophic.

"Do you know how many idols were ready and waiting to be shipped off to pandals?" asks Tapan Pal, frustration evident. "We had to rebuild, re-coat with clay, let them dry again—only then were we able to deliver. But doing all this in this weather is our biggest challenge. No photographer came then to ask about our plight.”

Babu Pal frames the crisis differently: "A lot of money is also lost. People won’t pay for repairs, so it was all our own income going away. But the loss is not just about money—it's about time slipping away." Time is currency; these artisans cannot afford to waste. The festival operates on an inflexible calendar; delays ripple through the entire production chain, affecting not just individual workshops but the collective ecosystem of Kumartuli.

However, these problems are not highlighted by the people who come here to capture this 300-year-old potter's colony.

The Quiet Crisis of Commerce and Survival that goes unnoticed

The financial architecture works against the artisans of Kumartuli. Middlemen extract significant portions of profits, leaving actual craftsmen with minimal returns. Raw material costs—clay, bamboo, straw, paints—have risen sharply, but idol prices haven't kept pace. Many artisans work seasonally, earning primarily in the months preceding Durga Puja. When the festival ends, income dries up entirely.

Tapan Pal points to one silver lining: the export market. "While traditional clay idols, because of their weight and fragility, cannot travel overseas, lighter versions made of fibre or expanded polystyrene are finding their way to the UK, Canada, the USA and beyond." These international orders arrive early, providing work during otherwise lean months. But with current export restrictions to Bangladesh and the stopping of postal services to the US, a major decline has occurred.

Even last year, Kumartuli was one of the important voices speaking against the safety issues in Kolkata, following the R G Kar rape and murder case. Every shop had a poster supporting the then ongoing protest, and the artisans had even recorded the "low' sales, as compared to other years, and the lanes were marked with less crowd.

When social media users share their Kumartuli content, they rarely question what happens once the cameras leave. They don’t see artisans working through the night to meet deadlines, or families calculating whether this year’s earnings will stretch through the lean months. The aesthetic appeal of clay-covered hands obscures the economic precarity those hands represent.

The artisans aren’t asking for pity—they’re asking for visibility that matters. Recognition that translates into fair compensation, improved working conditions, and sustainable livelihoods. Not fleeting Instagram fame, but lasting structural change. Until then, they’ll continue shaping gods from clay, their own struggles remaining as invisible as ever—despite ten thousand photographs suggesting otherwise.

While the artisans once felt their work was finally being highlighted and welcomed the attention, they have now become little more than a backdrop—an uncomfortable realisation that has made them hesitant to speak with commoners and tourists alike. Months before the festival, as they prepared for this season’s Durga Puja, they preferred to be left alone when approached by us.

 "What will I talk about? This fame is hardly about my work, and is mostly about who is shooting me," an artisan said, keeping his name anonymous.

Another artist who remained busy with other murtis, like that of Netaji and Nandlal Bose, asks, "If we have to be left on our own after the festival, why should we go through the emotional upheaval by engaging with the people in the first place?"