Is Centuries-Old Ravana Effigy Making Craft Dying A Slow Death In Delhi?

Rampal is back in Delhi, meticulously involved in the art of installing a Ravana effigy from the scratch. Sitting under a tree on the Najafgarh Road, near Subhash Nagar metro station, he is busy crafting a bamboo structure with wires that would give the final shape to the demon king. He has already made some 100 structures, big and small, in just over a month.

Rampal hails from Amroha, a village in western Uttar Pradesh. He is the chief artisan in one of Delhi¡¯s largest Ravana effigy makers, based in Tatarpur village near Subhash Nagar and makes Rs 500 per day.

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But the business and the money for him is shrinking. Effigy-making is not his full-time job. He, like other families who come to the capital around Dusshera, will go back after to his village after all the celebrations are over and the Ravana¡¯s burnt to ashes.

GST to blame?

Sanjay Kumar, 45, runs an effigy-making business which he inherited from his father decades ago. Around 80-100 effigies of Ravanas, Kumbhakarans and Meghnads under the metro station belong to his shop, where labourers relentlessly work to deliver the perfect ravana ¨C moustaches that stretch outwards for almost 5 foot, eyes that occupy nearly half of his face and an evil grin working as the cherry on top.

Numerous Ravana effigy makers are bearing the brunt of GST, and they all echo the same sentiment ¨C prices have gone up but profits are declining after GST was launched on July 1 by then President Pranab Mukherjee, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

¡°An average-sized Ravana used to cost us around Rs 7,000 and we sold it for Rs 12,000. Now, it costs us Rs 10,000 but we are bound to sell it for the same price as earlier, otherwise the people won¡¯t buy it.¡±

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Sanjay is in the effigy-making business for over 35 years now. He says that the good old days are gone with the rising costs. ¡°Bamboo has become expensive, paper costs us more now. Our profits are shrinking and we are forced to charge the same amount as.¡±

GST has hampered trade, especially small-scale and cottage-scale businesses, forcing man effigy-makers to contemplate whether to continue with the effigy business or to shut shops.

Shrinking orders for effigies

Sanjay has a transportation business in Delhi. Rampal is a farmer for the rest 10 months of the year. Many labours who migrate to the capital for almost 2 months go back to their full-time profession once the work here is completed.

This year, as the labours say, ¡°kaam thanda pada hai¡± (there¡¯s hardly any work). ¡°We did not want to do the business this year. I had almost made up my mind. We do not make much money now. What is the point of investing so much?¡±, Sanjay says with a gloomy face.

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¡°This year even the labourers arrived late. Our work was already running late. Five years back, we received orders months in advance for Ravanas of all sizes and specifications. But now we hardly get bulk orders. Interested people usually come a day before Dusshera and buy effigies hoping to get it at the lowest price. We are forced to sell it at marginal rates otherwise we won¡¯t earn a penny.¡±

Sanjay's chief artisan Rampal has designed a 20-feet tall Ravana effigy for a Dusshera event in New Jersey, which has already been shipped to the US in parts. This is the only major order they received this year. Next year around the same time, these artisans will fly to the US to make effigies.

¡°I don¡¯t want to do this work. My elder brother (Sanjay) has been doing this for years but I chose to remain out of this. I earn Rs 15,000 per month in my job as a guard at a public convenience. I also run my own business of making submersible pumps. Who wants to do this work when you are not earning anything?¡±, says Vijay Saxena, 31, who monitors the public toilet near the Subhash Nagar metro station and simultaneously observes the labourers working on effigies.

Not a lavish business anymore

A painter hired on an ad-hoc basis earns a meagre Rs 250 per day, amounting to Rs 7,500 per month. Painters are usually hired from nearby shops to paint the Ravana effigies.

For 31-year-old Lakshman Kumar, a resident of Tatarpur, painting an effigy is a child¡¯s play. He has been doing this for over 20 years but money is a concern now. He takes only five minutes to paint eyes, eyebrows, lips and teeth on an effigy and soon hops onto the other one. ¡°The business isn¡¯t flourishing anymore. It seems no one wants to remember Dusshera, forget to celebrate it¡±, he says while painting eyelashes on an effigy¡¯s seven feet tall face.

Children, as young as 13 years of age, painters, and labourers find an easy workaround Dusshera. Only three families into the effigy-making business belong to Tatarpur. The rest are migrants from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat and West Bengal who came here in search of a job and settled with the locals.

End of an era?

Unfortunately, this West Delhi area is about to change beyond recognition. After SDMC confiscated half-finished effigies, wrapped in sarees and khaki paper as part of the anti-encroachment drive, businessmen had to bear a loss worth lakhs. This led to delay in work. Had it been any other year, the effigies would have been ready by now. Every year, the pavement of Najafgarh road are the homes of the artisans for two months. Next year onwards, the roads will be deserted with not a single effigy gracing the sidewalks and pavements, a nightmare for the businessmen for whom Ravana is a source of income.

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¡°The reason behind removing the effigies was a garbage dump near Tagore Garden Metro station that was to be inaugurated in a high-profile ceremony¡±, adds Vijay. ¡°If only they had told us in advance, we would have taken the effigies and moved somewhere else. We had to bear huge loss. The time and the energy of the artisans suffered.¡±

The Delhi High Court intervened in the matter and ordered the SDMC to return the effigies and find a spot for the artisans to set shops, as well as compensate the loss.

Next year onwards, the entire Ravana effigy making business will move to areas near the Badarpur border and Burari. After Raksha Bandhan in August, Tatarpur comes to life adorned with colourful giant effigies, but this won¡¯t be the view you get to see next year. The decision to shift these workers and their generations-old business seems like murdering a tradition and the end of an era.