Team Herald
MARGAO: Having completed sculpting their Lord Ganesh idols, artists across Margao are now gearing up to give the final artistic touches to their idols in different ‘chitrashalas’ in Margao and its suburbs.
There are several ‘chitrashalas’ spread across Salcete taluka, which take advance orders for Ganesh idols, and customers visit to pick up their Ganeshas either on the eve of Chaturthi, or on the day of the festival. One city artist, who has continued his family business of making idols, said that there has been a perceptible rise in the demand for smaller idols over the past couple of years.
He added that the rise in the prices of raw materials has forced them to increase their rates.The cheapest idols are priced at Rs 700 to 800, while the expensive big ones are sold for around Rs 10,000.
He said that on an average, middle class families buy idols costing from Rs 2,000 to Rs 2,800, which is what a two-foot-tall Ganesha idol would cost, he said.
In Margaro, some shopkeepers sell idols brought from outside Goa, mostly from Mumbai or other parts of Maharashtra, at reasonable prices.
There has been an increasing trend of demand for small idols these days, something we never witnessed in the past, said a shop owner. “Some families in the villages of Salcete prefer to worship smaller Ganesh idols at home during the festival. Some families, who celebrate Ganesh Utsav for five, seven and eleven days, choose the larger Ganeshas as well,” he added.
