Dharwad, September 8, 2013: anjunath Hiremath is an artist engaged in a silent, but effective campaign to promote the use of eco-friendly Ganesh idols to celebrate Ganesh Chaturti.

At a time when efforts by green activists and government agencies to promote eco-friendly idols have met with limited success, Mr. Hiremath’s dedicated mission is inspiring .

He is totally committed to the cause of promoting eco-friendly celebration of festivals and has revived the traditional method of making idols using natural clay and herbal colours.

“My idols are more attractive As they are 100 per cent eco-friendly ,” he says.

Until 2010, Mr. Hiremath too was making engaged in making plaster of Paris (PoP) idols. But after witnessing the amount of pollution caused by the immersion of PoP idols, he decided to do his bit to keep the environment clean.

It has not always been an easy task. “Making clay idols is time consuming. We can make 50 PoP idols a day but not more than two clay idols. Preparing natural colours, too, is cumbersome. , he says.

But far more challenging has been to convince customers to shift from the lighter PoP idols to the natural, eco-friendly ones.

“First, I started using eco-friendly idols in my house. Later, I managed to convince some friendly customers by displaying both the clay and PoP idols side-by-side and telling them how charming the clay idols were. I would tell them that the clay idols were made using holy materials like Chandan, Ashtagandha, saffron, turmeric and others,” Mr. Hiremath says,

“They also realised that the well water remains clean after immersing clay idols,” he said. Today, Mr. Hiremath’s dedicated efforts have yielded results.

“This year I sold over 500 idols for household use and 70 large-size idols for public celebrations. I have received orders from Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh as well,” he said.

Source: The Hindu, September 8, 2013