these simple people to cope up with the economic upsurge and marginalization. Hence many of the senior artists today are discouraging their younger generations to take up idol-making as a profession. They are facing a constant pressure to move away from their traditional family profession in order to find a more economically viable means of survival. And if this anxiety continues for a few more years, then there is an impending threat of extinction of this whole community which added a new dimension to the notion of the creator and his creation. This will solely mark the destruction of creation as Pablo Picasso suggested: “Every act of creation is an act of destruction.� Another problem faced by this community is the State decision to evacuate Kumartuli in order to reconstruct the area. According to this plan they have demarcated this area in four regions and each of them will gradually shift to the Governmental Central store and continue idol making there. Once the Kumartuli area is rebuilt in form of concrete housings, replacing the existing bamboo/brick hutments, the Kumaras will shift back to their allotted plots. Though the planning of this project has been in discussion for past six years, this year the chances of its execution seem stronger. Already meetings between the parties involved are taking place regularly. If this project is finally carried out, according to the artisans, it will have both its positive and negative echoes. Though it will provide them some amount of security and also boost up their expectations of a better future for younger generations, it will also bring forth the threat of limitation. They believe that the invasion of concrete houses will cut them off from their surroundings, hence reducing the process of idol making to a mere mechanical means of survival. It will also create a problem by forcing these frugal people into a lifestyle which they cannot afford and also the baggage of a number of taxes. Hence at this moment the community is hopeful, yet apprehensive about this decision. And it is only time that will be able to decide their future. But still it is the human nature which continually hopes against hope. Thus whenever I notice a small child in Kumartuli, playing and trying to form a haphazard shape with clay, sitting beside his grandfather, who is busy shaping the Mother Goddess my heart fills up with fathomless hope, a hope about the endurance of humanity, the victory of the human spirit above all oddities. As a filmmaker I strongly feel that it is my responsibility to present the story of these God Makers to the world in order to save them from mute extinction. It is not only because I have spent many hours of my formative years in the by-lanes of Kumartuli; it is not only due to the essence of nostalgia. It is the undying nature of human spirit which drives me to voice these accounts of human emotions, essence and survival in front of the world. To bring forward these unnamed creators whose hands crafted God, but whose life always remained devoid His blessings.
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T he Original Proposals