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Foreign envoys and families fumble their way through divine diplomacy

Perhaps thinking of Lord Shiva, the Netherlands's Liona Beltgens carves out a third eye on the forehead of Lord Ganesha’s clay idol.

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Perhaps thinking of Lord Shiva, Liona Beltgens carves out a third eye on the forehead of Lord Ganesha’s clay idol. The Netherlands national of Indonesian origin did sit through a lecture on the deities in Hindu mythology, but one can’t really fault her for mixing them up.

Laughing at her mistake, she says, “There are so many of them, with so many different names, that you get confused!”
Beltgens, wife of the consul of the Netherlands, is one of the participants at an idol-making workshop held on Sunday at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj museum. It was organised by the consul general of the Netherlands in partnership with the department of Ancient Indian Culture at St. Xavier’s College and the children’s section of the Museum Society of Bombay.

“The idea was to get in tune with the city’s culture,” says Marijke Van Drunen Littel, the consul general of the Netherlands. “We held a talk show last week and followed it up with this.” Along with the consul generals of three other countries — Poland, Thailand, and Turkey — are visually impaired students of St Xavier’s College and underprivileged children from the Salaam Bombay Foundation.

Making the mouse excites kids like Tan Yoruk, the eight-year-old son of the consul general of Turkey, while the adults seem fascinated by the deity’s belly. “Men in India and the Netherlands alike have huge pot bellies,” Littel quips. “Lord Ganesha, too, has one, and I am trying to get that right.”

Some like Margo Jarnson, the consul general of Thailand, and her daughter are more confident of their idols. “We are Thais, and we know our Ganesha,” she says. “Our idols will have the legs crossed. The trunk, too, will be to the left so that he is an easygoing Ganesha.”

The most appreciated are the works of the visually impaired students. “They display profound accuracy,” says Agnieszke Bylinska, the consul general of Poland. Spelling out the intention to draw in a wider range of children, professor Anita Kothare of St. Xavier’s College says, “We will now do something similar with kids from the Spastics Society.”

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