Making a Home away from Hell

This story was written when I was photographing the various Lord Ganesh idol makers in the city of Bhopal in October 2002, during my stint with the Hindustan Times. As I was framing some images for the newspaper I saw another tent which had loads of Gujarati people and so I walked up to them and started a conversation, and to my surprise these were survivors of the Gujarat riots who had crossed the state border all the way to Bhopal to start a new life. The story was immediately accepted by the Resident Editor since it had a double peg to it with Riot Survivors and of course the festival mood added to it.

Among the many Ganesha idol-makers in the State Capital, there are three families furiously at work trying to exorcise their demons from a gruesome past. These 25-odd people are staking their all in their work, hoping it would help them settle into a new existence far away from riot-torn Gujarat – once their home.
In what was in the first week of May, six days after the riots broke out, that the three families fled the state, leaving behind their burning shops and houses and a trail of memories. The three families met at the Ahmedabad railway station. They found the money they had could fetch rail tickets only upto Bhopal.
The “Jat Dala’ or the (head of the Group) says they saved a couple of families before fleeing. He adds they chose Bhopal as it was the nearest place they could afford and seemed promising for their business. All the families incidentally were idol –makers in Ahmedabad and residents of the Navarangpura and the Ambawari areas. Their group has 15 men, 10 women, and 15 children. The youngest is two month old Ketan who was born in Bhopal. Veera Anil, who used to stay with his family in the Navrangpura area near th LD College in Ahmedabad can not forget the horror that uprooted his family. “I lost everything in the riots, my shop, house and my sister Jamuna Dhai whom I could not save,” he sys with tears in his eyes. They point out there is a difference between the Gujarati-style idols and the ones made here. The Gujarati ones are all shiny with a lot of silver –work on them. Their prices range from Rs 50 to an exorbitant Rs 6001. As the families work in their temporary “studios’ near the Mata Mandir, it is difficult to miss their eagerness to rebuild their lives in the city of lakes.