By Sunny Sebastian
Jaipur, Oct 5, 2022: They are back! The effigies of the wicked who symbolize aggression, greed, enmity and hatred, are back, ready for their trial by fire. They will surely meet their fiery end on Dussehra.
They are there, Ravana, Kumbakarna and others, all lined up waiting for the buyers on the street corners of Jaipur and elsewhere in various cities. Their creators– in the case of Jaipur– artisans from Pali and Jalore districts of Rajasthan and Muslim ‘karigars’ (skilled workers) from Uttar Pradesh are expecting a good year this Dussehra season.
Some of their relatives, those who died in the Corona pandemic and of hunger in the extremely lean years of 2020 and 2021, are memories. Their children have taken over the seasonal business.
Year after year, pulled by curiosity and childlike excitement, I go to watch the effigies, some in the making and others in various stages of completion. I check their facial expressions, moods, colors and sizes. They are as good (perhaps as bad!) as ever, mustachioed, grimacing, comical, feeble and worse.
However, folks I have a feeling that over the years they don’t look as threatening as they used to. Yet the show must go on. They should all die for our convictions (or illusions?). Perhaps a comical rendering of your enemy gives more satisfaction!
I took some photos at Gujjar ki Thadi in Mansarovar, near the New Aatish Market metro station, Jaipur.
While clicking the photos averting the heavy traffic, I was delighted to find a young father with two excited kids, a boy and a girl, in the process of showing them around and clicking their photos with the effigies.
“You are giving them the right type of education, my young friend,” I told the somewhat bewildered young man.
(Sunny Sebastian is the former Vice-Chancellor at Haridev Joshi University of Journalism and Mass Communication, Jaipur. Earlier, he served as the Deputy Editor with The Hindu in in the same city.)