Flowers in Nanpura..

Early morning in Nanpura Timaliyawad... Festive season round the corner?

Gods for sale...

A few areas of Surat including Majura Gate, have become "Idol Junctions" where artisans make seasonal idols... While the unsold Amba Mata idols lay discarded now that Navratri is over. Its back to Sai Baba in technicolor!

Ravana... Up and ready!

He's finally up and awaiting the flaming arrows of Ram...!! A very interesting order was relayed by the organisers you see seated below the Ravana to the workers before they got into their cars and broke for Lunch, while I was taking these pics... "Arrey Bhaiyya, zara Ravana ko thik thak kar lena... aur us pe jo bhi taangna vaangna ho to shaam se pehle taang dena!!"

The arsenal...

Artisans brought in from Mathura painstakingly creating the "arsenal" that would demolish the very Ravana they created... Dichotomy couldnt get any precise, where the artisans create the Ravana, and also ready the arsenal to set him ablaze!

Ravana in the making...

You would get to see pictures of Ravana in the papers on the day after Dussehra..going up in flames, and resolve to burn all the evils in your life too, but I decided to find out how the evil entered in the first place!! Here's an insight into the kind of labour that went into the "making of Ravana" in Surat. Painstakingly put together by craftsmen brought in from Mathura... and destined to go up in flames in nothing more than a minute!