ABSTRACT
During the idol-crafting season before the festival, public spaces and infrastructural shortcomings are adapted, adopted, or repurposed by the craft’s practitioners to carry out the practice. This chapter draws on the dynamic between facilities being stretched to breaking point and peoples’ grievances, as well as the continuing faith-led consumer demand for clay crafts. That is scholarly understanding of Durga Puja as a religious practice and Kumartuli as a craft neighbourhood must be located against the complex backdrop of the growing commodification of a cultural craft, as well as an understanding of how the seasonal workforce accompanied by festive drummers and associated caste-based professions and other networks have evolved over time to facilitate these operations of practices. Findings suggest that despite the congested and competitive spatial and relational configurations, there remains social cohesion, collaborative practices, and support networks within the caste-homogenous neighbourhood that sustains the growing demand of crafts associated with Durga Puja.
