Unique 3D Durga Puja in Kolkata pandal

Kolkata, Sept 24: Art and technology have mingled in this year's Durga Puja festival to present a unique 3D digital image of Goddess Durga at a pandal in the city.

The "unique" image measuring 6x14 feet will be hosted in the Jodhpur Park puja pandal which is known for its innovation.

Explaining the concept, Ujjal Mitra, owner of the company assigned to execute the job, said that the idol was the result of computer-aided designs using graphic technology.

For fabricating the image thousands of tonnes of A4 standard papers were used to transform the shape.

"To see the image, people do not need to wear special customised glasses as in the case of 3D movies in cinema halls, Mitra said.

One advantage of this technology is that the designs can be mailed with attachments which then can be recreated anywhere in the globe, he said.

"With clay idols becoming outdated for pollution issues in the west, the Bengali diaspora can save the trans-shipment cost and don't have to preserve fiberglass idols for future uses," Mitra said.

Sculptor Kousav Chowdhury, busy with executing the paper pulp images on a frame in the pandal built with red-brick tiles resembling a terracotta temple of rural Bengal, said, the idol would have the imprints of Italian and Greek mythology.

It is like the Venus sculptures dotting the gardens of the rich in the 19th and early 20th century Kolkata, he explains.

"There is aesthetics, there is devotion, there is fantasy all roled into one in our idol. But we haven't deviated much from the traditional durga faces," the young sculptor said.

PTI