Every day a few trained disciples of Sadguru Aniruddha Bapu routinely gather in a decrepit room in Gamdevi. They have been doing this for the past eight years in the run up to the Ganesh festival. “First, we started by making toys before moving on to making papier-mâché Ganpati,” said Satyavan Redkar, a disciple.
A garment machine engineer by profession, Redkar and many others, who have nothing to do with idol-making, are just doing this as a service to their spiritual guru.
“In 2003, he took a resolve to protect Mother Nature. So we do not have broken Ganpatis, we first started with toys,” added Redkar, while shaping mashed paper to make Ganpati.
Around 2,600 papier-mâché Ganpatis will be made this year by Aniruddha’s disciples. These will be of one foot to four feet. To provide choice, these are sculpted to resemble 12 prominent avatars of Lord Ganesh. To ensure that eco-friendly word stands true to the practice, besides paper, all other ingredients are eco-friendly as well. ‘Dink’ (Gum Arabic from trees) is used as a glue, organic colours to paint, natural shell dust, and white ink powder. “Even the paper that is used is from the Aniruddha’s Universal Bank of Ram Naam,” said Prakash Rane, a police officer by profession. Raam Nam bank is basically name of lord Ram written by devotees during free time in books.
“These papers are soaked for eight days before being grinded in Boisar,” said Rane. The grinded paper is then sent to various centres where it is mixed with other essentials to make dough. “We shape it and put the dough on the cast. It remains there for one to one and half day to dry before Ganpatis are ready for paint,” said Dattaram Gangan, who works in share market.
