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Make your green Ganesha at home. It’s easy

With a shortage of ‘eco-friendly’ Ganesha idols in the market, a family of devotees in Chembur is promoting the craft of making idols at home.

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With a shortage of ‘eco-friendly’ Ganesha idols in the market, a family of devotees in Chembur is promoting the craft of making idols at home.

The Sangoles who live in Chedda Nagar, have been among the first in the city to devise methods to make the Ganesh festival less environmentally-damaging, including immersing idols in artificial ponds so that they do not pollute natural water bodies.

Sheetal Sangole, a former school teacher, attended an idol-making workshop in Pune. She said that using simple techniques, idols can be made at a fraction of their cost.

Though clay idols dissolve completely in water without choking water bodies, idols manufacturers prefer to make statues out of plaster-of-Paris (PoP) which is cheaper and lighter, though more environmentally destructive than clay.

“If the clay idol is immersed in an artificial pond, the clay can be retrieved and reused,” said her husband Dr Vijay Sangole, a former municipal doctor and joint secretary of Pestom Sagar Citizens’ Forum.   

“It gives a lot more joy if you worship a Ganesha that you have made yourself,” said the couple’s son Dr Nishant Sangole, a senior medical advisor with a pharmaceutical company.  His wife Prajakta who is an artist, helps paint the idols.

The Sangoles have faced opposition from right wing groups that have said that an ‘eco-friendly’ Ganeshotsav violates religious traditions. “But when Ganesh idols were not made in workshops, people fashioned Ganeshas out of clay dug from their courtyards. The idols were immersed in the village wells. What we are doing was the original practice in villages,” said Dr Vijay.

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