Mahisasura's garb for Greg Chappell!

KOLKATA: A local puja organiser is seeking divine intervention for Sourav Ganguly's return to the Indian cricket team  by depicting coach Greg Chappell as the demon 'Mahisasura' during next month's Durga Puja.

A prominent sculptor of Kumartuli, where Durga images are sculpted, has been asked by a North Kolkata puja organiser to depict the Australian as Mahisasura, the evil demon who is eliminated by Goddess Durga.

"The people in our locality have very strong sentiments against Chappell for his role in omitting of Ganguly from the Indian team and that is why we have decided to depict Chappell as Mahisasura this year," a member of the Deshbandhu Road Puja committee in Baranagar said.

"Ganguly is very dear to us and we want to express our sentiments in this manner," another member of the committee said.

Depiction of topical events at the puja mandaps (pandals) is a common practice in Kolkata during Durga Puja, the biggest festival of Bengal scheduled this year for the last week of September.

Dilip Pal, the sculptor in Kumartuli, who has been assigned the task of making Mahisasura look like Chappell, sees nothing wrong in depicting the batting legend as evil
personified.

"Every year we get requests from puja organisers to make images depicting some recent events and this year it is the Ganguly-Chappell issue," Pal said.

Interestingly, Pal is also making an image depicting the infamous head-butt by French footballing icon Zinedine Zidane during the World Cup for another puja committee.