The Keshtopur pandal, which was a crowd-puller for depicting Osama bin Laden as the buffalo demon last year, has a frieze on the recent rape of a minor girl in a Mumbai train. Replete with recorded sound effects of a running train and shrieks, the "audio-visual presentation" is expected to be a major attraction.

But Ramesh Pal, a veteran idol maker, has his doubts: "I really don’t know if people will follow the message. We can only hope that some educated people would like the show and learn from it. For children and the public at large, this is nothing but entertainment."

Pal echoes the feelings of a large number of elderly Bengalis who believe that these "side shows" are robbing Durga Puja of its sanctity. While public attention should be focused on the Mother Goddess, the emphasis on "showmanship and gimmickry" is turning out to be distracting, they argue.

"In our time, Puja meant wearing new clothes and offering prayers with the rest of the neighbourhood at the local pandal," explains Bibhas Chakarborty, a septuagenarian poet. It was a simple, pure and holy affair. There were no mikes, lights, film songs, electronic effects..."

"Modelling Durga images to resemble Hema Malini or some other Hindi film star was bad enough," Pal points out. "But now, they are asking for the most ridiculous things. Religion and worship can find no place in all this."

"But we must change with the times", argues Bibhas Maity, a special effects expert who prints greetings cards for the rest of the year. "When we have the technology, why not make use of it? Besides, there is no better forum to bring up socially relevant issues than at the Bengalis’ biggest festival of the year."

Another issue gaining precedence during the festivities is the gradual abandoning of bio-degradable material for making Durga idols. When and how plaster-of-paris, glass, metal and toxic paints have come to replace clay and organic colours, the artisans themselves do not know.

"We are under increasing pressure to come up with something novel each year," says Rathin Pal, another artisan. "I can understand clay idols are routine and common. But you cannot disregard the fact that after immersion, they dissolve and disintegrate in the waters very easily."

When some environment protection groups pointed out that some plaster-of-paris idols remained intact months after immersion and were polluting the waters of the Ganges, the municipal corporation decided to earmark seven tanks in the city for immersion on Dasehra day.

Needless to mention, they remain by and large unused. MF