More people opting for ‘green’ Ganesha

BY CITY NEWS

By Adnan Attarwala & Kunal Chonkar

With the number of ecofriendly Ganesh idol-makers rising in the city, it can be safely concluded that the awareness about celebrating the festival in a green way seems to be bearing fruit.While the environment ministry is still deciding the fate of Plaster of Paris (POP) for making Ganesha idols, environmental organizations
are already manufacturing eco-friendly idols using clay, paper and even river silt.

Helping the cause is the Shri  Aniruddha Upasna Foundation, which under the guidance of its leader Sadguru Dr. Aniruddha Joshi, (MD-Rheumatology) has
been providing eco-friendly idols sculpted from paper, natural gum, ink whitener and eco-friendly colors, especially manufactured by Pidilite at economical rates.
“We started with 335 idols in 2004 and today, the number has gone beyond 6,000 across the state. Since the people are becoming aware about the environmental issues, they have now started bringing home an ecofriendly idol,” said Sunil Mantri, CEO of the Foundation.

The Foundation has hundreds of centers all across the state , including cities like Mumbai, Pune, Satara, Kolhapur, etc., has been teaching devotees to make green idols made from paper and are usually between one to four ft tall. The paper for crafting idols is generated from thousands of Ramnaambooks that are generated and collected fromAniruddha’sUniversal Bank of Ramnaam. Moreover, these idols are also in demand in Europe and American countries.

“Besides being eco-friendly, the idols are pious as they are made fromsacred books.We are creating an alternative in a system that has defects. However, professional idol-makers prefer working with POP as it dries faster than paper,” Mantri added.

Jus like the Upasna Foundation,  SPROUTS is an NGO that makes eco-friendly idols using river silt, which its director, Anand Pendharkar secures from the countryside.

“When we had started three years ago, we only managed to sell about five idols, but today, we sell more than 40 idols. All this is possible due to increasing awareness,”said Anand.

Similarly, Young Environmentalists Program (YEP) at Powai under the supervision of Elsie Gabriel holds workshops where they involve and teach students - deaf and dumb, blind and slumdwellers to makeeco-friendly idols out of clay. Every year, they approach mandal hoping to persuade them to use eco-friendly Ganesha idols that are later immersed in Powai lake. “We take from Mother Earth and give it back to her,” says Elsie.

“Thematerial that we use for the making the decoration is made up of recycled paper and the colours are natural based. The idols are made of paper mache and natural tree gum,” informed Rashmi H, member of E-arts, an NGO which had prizes and felicitations from the state,MPCB and Times Group.

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