In Kumartuli, north Kolkata’s famed idol sculpting colony, action and adrenaline are high as workers amp up work to complete their final orders for Durga Puja. However, a pall of gloom has set in as protests continue demanding justice for the doctor who was raped and killed at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in the city. Amid dampened spirits, Kumartuli’s artisans are facing mounting losses with orders drying up for many of them this year.

Kakoli Pal, one of the few female idol sculptors in the colony, notes that the sales at Kumartuli have taken a hit as month-long agitations grip people across the State following the doctor’s heinous rape and murder on August 9. “All my idols would be sold out or booked out by the time one month is left for the pujas. But this year, I still have unsold idol pieces,” she said.

She recalled that the last time her idol sales were affected was the year the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

With protests continuing across the State, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee earlier this month had urged people to “return to festivities” and highlighted the effect the protests had on small businesses relying on Durga Puja for their sustenance. “One month has passed. I will appeal to people to return to (Durga) Puja festivities,” she had said in a public address on September 9.

The declining condition of Puja-dependent businesses was also pointed out by a female artisan at Kumartuli who specialises in painting the goddess’s eyes. “This is our bread and butter, business is already down this year, and orders are fewer in number. How will we, the artisans, survive if people do not celebrate Durga Puja?” she asks.

According to the artisan, her regular clients have expressed apprehensions around protests continuing through the entirety of the festive season, a consequent drop in pandal hoppers, as well as logistical difficulties in transporting the idol amid protest rallies and sit-in demonstrations that have gripped the city’s streets for the last month. Many Durga Puja organisers across the State have also returned the honorarium by the State government in protest, and to demand justice for the victim.

“If we do not pray to goddess Durga then who will bring justice to the victim? Even with a heavy heart, we must participate in the pujas,” she said. “We are sad, everyone around us is sad. But Durga is the person who fights against evil spirits, the ashura. If we do not invoke her during the pujas, then who will kill the ashuras who violated and killed the victim of RG Kar?”

The same sentiment is shared by Ms. Kakoli, who said she is hoping that Durga will help annihilate the ashuras who are behind the heinous crime that took the victim’s life.

“After my husband passed, I had to raise two daughters by myself. Like Abhaya, who would save lives, I would also work daily to save these two lives who were dependent on me,” she shared. “Her pain is thus personal, and I can only hope the ashuras are defeated here too.”

Meanwhile, a renowned third-generation idol sculptor at Kumartuli, Bankim Pal, has observed a drastic drop in tourists, bloggers, and photographers that throng the lanes and bylanes of Kumartuli in the pre-Puja phase. “Every year, the crowd of tourists and photographers in Kumartuli would be so large before Durga Puja that we wouldn’t have the space to move here. But this year, there are hardly any visitors,” he says.

However, despite apprehensions around declining incomes, the widespread gloom and grief have deeply affected the artisans as well. Ms. Kakoli, for instance, now feels fearful about her daughter leaving the State for work. “She was supposed to leave for Bengaluru this week for a new job. But after what happened to the doctor, I have been feeling uneasy about letting her go,” she says, adding that her daughter has postponed her departure by a month on her request.

Mr. Bankim was also reminded of his daughter when he heard the horrific news. “As a father to a daughter, I feel so much pain for the victim’s parents. How can I concentrate on making idols amid such tragedy?” he asked.

On September 8, Kumartuli’s artisans took out their own protest rally from Kumartuli Art Gallery to Shyambazar. According to Mr. Bankim, the rally witnessed a footfall of at least 2,500 people that included not just local idol sculptors, but people from all walks of life. “Women, children, even infants joined our rally, and small-scale shopkeepers supported us by providing tea, snacks and water, free of cost,” he said.