Ganesha idol making is no commercial activity for these traditional artisans of Mangaluru Premium

Seventy-five-year-old artisan Ramachandra Rao is hurt when a customer asks the cost of a small clay idol of Ganesha that he is giving finishing touches to by delicately painting the eye. “How can you put a price tag on the idol of Lord Ganesha? This is not a commercial activity,” he says, recalling how his late father Mohan Rao also felt similarly.

Seventy-five-year-old artisan Ramachandra Rao is hurt when a customer asks the cost of a small clay idol of Ganesha that he is giving finishing touches to by delicately painting the eye. “How can you put a price tag on the idol of Lord Ganesha? This is not a commercial activity,” he says, recalling how his late father Mohan Rao also felt similarly.

Mohan Rao was among the few artisans of Mangaluru who started clay Ganesha idol making more than a century ago. “We still continue to follow his principle. Our family members and I have been doing clay Ganesha idols with devotion of over a century,” Ramachandra said.

As per tradition, a consumer offers an amount of money by placing cash on a betel leaf and betel nut giving the transaction a ritualistic aura. As this correspondent watched, one customer did a pooja to the idol right there, covered the idol in a piece of cloth and carried it to his car, after giving money to Ramachandra Rao with tamboola.

This idol is among the 200 that Ramachandra Rao has made for this Ganesha Chathurti festival, which begins on September 6. Along with Ramachandra, his brothers and 15 other members of the extended family have worked for over three months in preparing these idols. Among the family members involved include Ramachandra Rao’s 90-year-old brother Prabhakar Rao, and Prabhakar’s son Mahesh Rao and his wife Suma Rao. Great grand children Madhukar Rao, Sanjay Rao and Shivaprasad have also been involved in making clay Ganesha idols. The youngest of Mohan Rao’s family member involved in making idols is II PU student Ankush Rao, the grandson of Prabhakar.

“I slowly picked up various stages of work involved in idol making and I now totally involved in it,” Ankush says proudly. “It has been good to see him leave his mobile phone aside for the last few days and completely devote himself in idol making,” says Ankush’s uncle Venkatesh with a smile.

For Mohan Rao’s family members, the annual Ganesha idol making season is a time when every member of the family whole heartedly gets involved in idol making. “It is like a family reunion period. We all get together in this ancestral house in Mannagudde and do specific tasks that are assigned,” said Suma Rao, who specialises in putting ‘Mudras’ to clay idols and also in the placing of eyeballs.

The process of making small Ganesha idols (for homes) big idols, ranging between 3 and 5 feet for public events, starts about nearly five months before Ganesha Chathurti.