Yugpath spreads green message this Ganeshotsav

Yugpath in association with Art India Foundation recently organised a workshop for sculpting Ganesha idols using shadu under the guidance of Yugpath volunteers.

Yugpath is a group of city students determined to contribute to society.

The group takes up various social and environmental issues and strives to find solutions with an objective to make our country a better place to live in.

“We took this initiative last year and five of us from Yugpath took training under Mr Rajabhau, a professional sculptor. We trained 20 volunteers and they guided the participants during the workshop held this year,” said Salil Ranade, an active member of Yugpath.

Yugpath has been working on the issue of water pollution due to visarjan of idols made from plaster of Paris (PoP) for the last few years. It has been a difficult task since it was challenging to convince the people to immerse their idols in the tanks made by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC).

Hence, through this workshop we taught around 100 people last year and 250 this year to make Ganesha idols using shadu and organic colours, as it will help solve the problem of water pollution to some extent,” said Ranade.

Tarul Borwankar, an applied art student and member of Yugpath said, “I am pretty much an atheist and hence I am all the more excited about making these idols. The people participating in this workshop are not from art background, but they are here because this is probably the best and the most eco-friendly way of celebrating Ganesh Chaturthi.”

“Although Yugpath is a youth organisation, the issues taken up by it are not necessarily youth related. Hence we welcome people of all age groups to participate in our workshops. I have been a part of this workshop since last year, and I feel the satisfaction one gets by making his / her own idol is far more than buying a ready-made one that is also harmful to our environment,” said Shibani Dhavalikar, who has been associated with Yugpath since its inception.

Anjali Sambhoos, a housewife said, “I got to know about this workshop from my daughter’s friend who is a member of Yugpath. We celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi at home and this time I am looking forward to it since I have made the idol myself. Besides, the material is organic, so it is not going to harm the environment also.”