Nestled within the labyrinthine alleys of Kumartuli, where the air was thick with the scent of damp earth and incense, Mainak Roy toiled beneath the dim glow of a flickering oil lamp. His hands, stained with ochre and dust, moved with the precision of generations before him—kneading, shaping, coaxing divinity from raw clay. The legacy of his lineage coursed through his veins, yet he bore it like a shackle rather than a birthright.
For in his heart, Mainak harbored a blasphemous yearning.
He did not wish to mold gods.
He wished to create worlds.
His father, Haripada Roy, was a revered idol maker, a man whose calloused hands could breathe life into lifeless clay. He spoke of the craft as though it were scripture, a sacred duty passed from father to son, unbroken across centuries.
"You are born of clay, Mainak, and to clay you shall return. Ours is not a trade—it is dharma."
Yet, to Mainak, the workshop was no temple. It was a prison. The days bled into one another in an endless cycle of toil—mornings spent constructing skeletal bamboo frames, afternoons smoothing the contours of a goddess’s face, and nights refining the delicate curls of her hair. It was an existence dictated by repetition, by the unyielding expectations of a world that refused reinvention.
But Mainak had glimpsed a different future, illuminated in the flickering pixels of a secondhand laptop at a neighborhood cyber café. Animation. The art of breathing motion into stillness, of conjuring entire universes from the void. The first time he watched a Pixar film, something within him had stirred—an awakening, a rebellion.
But Kumartuli was not a place for dreamers.
Opportunity, in his world, was a myth. There were no scholarships for boys who spent their days sculpting gods. No mentors to nurture a mind that yearned for the digital, rather than the divine. And yet, a fragile ember of hope persisted.
One afternoon, while delivering an idol to a patron’s home in South Kolkata, Mainak’s eyes landed on a newspaper clipping: "National Animation Contest—Winner Receives Full Scholarship."
A door. A key. A chance.
Yet, the chasm between possibility and reality was insurmountable. He possessed no formal training, no portfolio, no means to even submit an entry. The thought of participating was laughable. But laughter had never built empires. Determination had.
At night, after his father’s voice had stilled and the workshop lay cloaked in silence, Mainak crept out—his destination, the cyber café. With three hundred rupees pilfered from his own meager savings, he bought limited hours on an outdated system, watching YouTube tutorials on animation with the rapt attention of a disciple.
Days passed. Then weeks. His father noticed the change—the absent-minded strokes of his sculpting tools, the calloused fingers stained with graphite instead of clay.
"You waste yourself," Haripada warned one evening, his voice like the crack of thunder. "Dreams are for those who can afford to fail."
But Mainak had long since decided—he would rather fail at pursuing his dream than succeed in a fate imposed upon him.
Fate, however, is seldom merciful to those who defy it.
On the eve of Durga Puja—the holiest, most lucrative season for idol makers—the skies betrayed them. A sudden monsoon, violent and unrelenting, descended upon Kumartuli. The river swelled, the floodwaters rose, and in mere hours, devastation swept through the alleyways. Unfinished idols, meticulously crafted over weeks, dissolved into the murky water.
The loss was catastrophic. The Roy family had been counting on this season’s earnings for survival. And Mainak had not been there—he had stolen away to meet a visiting professor from an art college, a man who had agreed to review his sketches.
When he returned, drenched and breathless, he found his father staring at the wreckage—ruined idols, shattered futures.
"Where were you?" Haripada’s voice was quiet, but it carried the weight of thunder. "When our gods drowned, where was my son?"
Mainak did not speak. He could not.
Haripada’s slap rang through the night like an executioner’s verdict.
"You are no son of mine."
The morning after the flood, Mainak received an email.
"Congratulations. You have been selected for the final round of the National Animation Contest in Delhi."
A triumph, rendered meaningless by the wreckage around him.
But destiny demands sacrifice.
With no means to finance his journey, Mainak committed the ultimate betrayal—he sold his grandfather’s antique sculpting tools, heirlooms that had bound his family to their craft for generations. The act was unforgivable. When his father discovered the missing relics, he did not rage.
He simply turned his back.
"Go."
The single word severed Mainak from the only world he had ever known.
And so, with nothing but a backpack and a USB drive filled with self-taught animations, he boarded a train to Delhi. Alone.
In Delhi, Mainak stood on a stage where he did not belong—a slum-born artisan among polished prodigies. Yet when his short film played—a poignant, hand-drawn animation of an idol maker who dreamed beyond his station—the room fell silent.
And then, applause.
He had won.
Years passed. Mainak’s name found its way into newspapers, his animations lauded in international festivals. He became the first boy from Kumartuli to step beyond its clay-lined streets and into the world of digital artistry.
One evening, back in Kolkata for an exhibition, he walked the familiar alleys of Kumartuli. The scent of damp clay still clung to the air. His feet found their way to the old workshop, now run by his younger brother.
His father sat in the corner, aged hands shaping an idol’s face, eyes fixed on his work. The television in the corner crackled—an interview played, Mainak’s own face speaking of animation, of escaping fate.
His father did not look at him.
But as Mainak turned to leave, he heard the softest murmur.
"Your shading is weak in the left corner."
A smile flickered across Mainak’s lips.
Perhaps he had not forsaken his gods after all.
Perhaps he had only sculpted a new one—a god of dreams, wrought from defiance, carved from clay and fire alike.
The End.
