Rows of painted Maa Kali idols in a Kumartuli workshop, Kolkata, before Kali Puja

Kumartuli: Where Bengal's Artisans Give Form to Maa Kali

In a narrow lane by the Hooghly, a man sits on a wooden stool with a fistful of wet clay. In front of him stands a goddess, twice his height, still the grey colour of the riverbank. In a few days she will be painted, dressed, given eyes and carried out into the city for Kali Puja. Today, she is still becoming.

This is Kumartuli, the potters' quarter of North Kolkata, where the gods of Bengal are made by hand. Our founder, Poonam Sheth, walked its lanes in the days before Kali Puja, camera in hand. Every photograph in this story is hers.

Rows of painted Kali idols lining a narrow Kumartuli workshop in Kolkata, with an artisan resting on a stool

A workshop corridor in Kumartuli, lined with Maa Kali idols waiting for their pandals. © Daroonjinish Handicrafts

A Lane of Gods by the River

The name says it simply. Kumor means potter and tuli means quarter. Kumartuli has been home to clay workers for close to three hundred years.

The potters are believed to have come from Krishnanagar and the towns of Nadia, following work down the river to the growing city of Calcutta. Local histories tie their move from pots to idols to 1757, when Raja Nabakrishna Deb of Sovabazar held a grand Durga Puja and brought in skilled image-makers to shape the goddess. Other wealthy households followed, the orders grew, and the potters stayed.

Today Kumartuli has hundreds of workshops packed into a few lanes. Idols made here travel to pandals across Kolkata, to the rest of India and to Bengali communities around the world. Many of the families have done this work for generations. Fathers teach sons. Mothers and daughters work beside them, and some of Kumartuli's best-known sculptors are women.

Unpainted clay Kali idols with raised arms standing in the street outside a Kumartuli workshop under blue tarpaulin

Clay Kalis drying in the open air, still the colour of the river. © Daroonjinish Handicrafts

From Straw and River Clay to Shakti

Nothing in Kumartuli comes out of a mould at full size. Every large idol is built up by hand, layer by layer, in a process that takes weeks.

  • The frame. It starts with a skeleton of bamboo and wood called the kathamo. Bundles of dried straw are tied over it with jute rope to give the first rough shape of the body.
  • The first clay. A sticky clay, entel mati, is mixed with rice husk and pressed onto the straw. This rough coat is left to dry for a few days.
  • The fine clay. A smoother, sandy river clay, bele mati, goes on next. Cracks are filled, muscles are shaped, and the face, hands and feet, often made in separate moulds, are fixed in place.
  • The finish. When the clay is dry, it is rubbed smooth, primed and painted. Then come the hair, the saree, the ornaments and the garland.
  • The eyes. By tradition, the eyes are painted last. Until then, the goddess is not quite "awake".

Kumartuli artisan sitting on a wooden stool hand-finishing a giant clay Kali idol, shaping her skirt of arms

An artisan hand-finishes Maa Kali's skirt of arms, one small clay hand at a time. © Daroonjinish Handicrafts

Look closely at the photograph above. That skirt is made of dozens of tiny clay hands, each one pressed and set by the man on the stool. The jewellery on her arms, the necklace at her throat and the anklet at her foot are all clay too, pressed from moulds and then worked by hand.

Unfinished clay Kali idol with a garland of sculpted clay heads and red thread tied on her hands, Kumartuli Kolkata

The garland of heads takes shape in clay before a single drop of paint. © Daroonjinish Handicrafts

Clay Kali idol in a sculpted pleated saree standing on Shiva with a jackal beside her, Kumartuli workshop

Even the pleats of the saree are sculpted. At her feet, Shiva, and a jackal, her companion of the cremation ground. © Daroonjinish Handicrafts

Kali idols in a grey primer coat with red-tipped hands and tags, inside a dim Kumartuli workshop

A primer coat, red on the palms, and a paper tag with the name of the puja committee waiting for her. © Daroonjinish Handicrafts

How to Read Maa Kali

To someone seeing her for the first time, Kali can look frightening. In Bengal, she is simply Ma. Every part of her image carries meaning.

  • Her dark skin. Black or deep blue, like the night sky or deep water. It is the colour of what has no edge and no end. Every other colour disappears into it.
  • Her name. Kala means time. Kali is the power of time itself, the force that ends things so that new things can begin.
  • The garland of heads. In Tantric readings, the heads are linked to the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, the sounds that all words and names are made from. She wears all of language as her ornament.
  • The skirt of arms. Arms are the instruments of action. Her skirt is often read as the karma of countless lives, gathered and set free.
  • Her four hands. One holds a sword and one a severed head: the cutting of the ego. The other two are raised in abhaya and varada, saying "do not fear" and "receive my blessing". She destroys and protects in the same moment.
  • Shiva beneath her feet. Pure consciousness, lying still, while she is pure energy, in motion. One cannot act without the other.

Freshly painted blue Kali idol with red tongue, third eye and garland of heads in a Kumartuli lane, Kolkata

Freshly painted and glossy, with the clay frames of the next idols around her. © Daroonjinish Handicrafts

Row of black Dakshina Kali idols with red hands and yellow garlands of heads standing on white Shiva figures, Kumartuli

Dakshina Kali, right foot forward on Shiva, the form most loved in Bengali homes. © Daroonjinish Handicrafts

The Essence of Kali in Our Lives

Kali is not only a goddess of the night of Kali Puja. Her lessons fit the everyday.

Fearlessness. Her raised hand says abhaya: do not be afraid. Most of what holds us back is fear. Kali stands in the cremation ground, the most feared place of all, and is completely at ease.

Letting go. She cuts away what is false: pride, old habits, the stories we tell ourselves. Every ending she brings is also a clearing for something new.

Time. As Kala, she reminds us that time is the one thing we cannot buy back. What matters is what we do with it today.

A mother's love. The 18th-century Bengali poet-saint Ramprasad Sen sang to Kali the way a child calls to its mother, sometimes sulking, sometimes laughing, always certain of her love. That is how Bengal worships her. Fierce on the outside, tender at the core.

Kali's strength is not anger. It is a mother's strength: she destroys what harms her children, and holds them close.

Kali idols dressed in red sarees with long black hair, gold ornaments and garlands of heads, inside a Kumartuli workshop

Dressed in red and gold, with hair that falls to her feet. © Daroonjinish Handicrafts

Blue Kali idol in a yellow silk saree with her face veiled by a blue cloth, beside a green-clad Kali, Kumartuli Kolkata

Her face stays veiled until she reaches her pandal. © Daroonjinish Handicrafts

Not Only Kali

Kumartuli works all year. Durga, Lakshmi, Saraswati, Ganesh, Kartik, Vishwakarma and Jagaddhatri all pass through these workshops in their seasons. So do lions for Durga, portrait statues and figures for homes and gardens. The same hands shape them all.

Painted Ganesh idol, white lion sculptures and a seated statue in saffron robes in a sunlit Kumartuli workshop

Ganesh, two lions and a seated figure share one sunlit corner. © Daroonjinish Handicrafts

Two clay figures receiving their first coat of skin-tone paint with red-painted hands and feet, Kumartuli workshop

First colour on the skin, red on the hands and feet, the rest still white primer. © Daroonjinish Handicrafts

Why We Celebrate Bengal's Artisans

At Daroonjinish, everything we make comes from the hands of rural Bengal: sabai grass weaving, Dokra metal casting, our Gohona silver and our attars. Kumartuli is a reminder of what that handwork really means. Weeks of patience. Skills passed down through families. A finished piece that no machine could make the same way twice.

When you buy handmade, you keep a craft alive and a family at work. When you visit Kumartuli, buy from the artisans directly, ask before you photograph, and stay out of the way of the work. These are people at their jobs.

This year, Kali Puja falls on Sunday, 8 November 2026, on the new-moon night of Kartik. Whether you light a lamp at home or visit a pandal, take a moment for the hands that shaped her.

Shubho Kali Puja from all of us at Daroonjinish.

Read the stories behind our Kali, Bhairav and Pishach attars here, or explore our handmade collection.

All photographs in this story were taken in Kumartuli, Kolkata, by Poonam Sheth, founder of Daroonjinish. © Daroonjinish Handicrafts. All rights reserved. Please do not copy or reuse these images without written permission.

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