Of Two Loves: A Pujo Pandal Has Brought Alive Baahubali in Kolkata

A Lake Town pujo has re-imagined Baahubali’s palace in the kingdom of Mahishmati as its Durga Pujo pandal this year.

A Kolkata pandal has managed to fill the void that the magnum opus Baahubali has left in your heart.

(Photo Courtesy: Runa Mukherjee Parikh)

If you have wondered at the marvellousness that the Baahubali series has been, then Kolkata has found more genius to fill the void that the magnum opus has left in your heart.

Sreebhumi Sporting Club in Lake Town has re-imagined Baahubali’s palace in the kingdom of Mahishmati as its Durga Pujo pandal this year. And the artisans have captured the epic in its glorious details.

The goddess and her family is laden with gold jewellery worth over Rs 8 crore.(Photo Courtesy: Runa Mukherjee Parikh)

Says DK Goswami, general secretary of the club,

Every year, we try to figure what the people will love to see at our pujo. And everyone loved <i>Baahubali</i>. The movie set a milestone in our film industry by every standard, so we chose it as our theme. Our artisans have worked on the idea for over three months and the results are amazing.

Baahubali’s Palace.(Photo Courtesy: Runa Mukherjee Parikh)

One man who watched the movie multiple times on his cellphone is the pandal designer Romio Hazra. The 37-year-old was given the task to create Mahishmati’s grandeur in the plot between two buildings in a Kolkata locality and he did not disappoint.

The model of the pandal in its initial stages.(Photo Courtesy: Runa Mukherjee Parikh)

We took out printouts of many of the movie’s scenes, we also drew out some of the elements we wanted to use in the pandal. Finally, we created a model of the palace and got to work.

Romio Hazra

Romio Hazra, the pandal artist.(Photo Courtesy: Runa Mukherjee Parikh)

It is fascinating to see the humungous elephants – with their trunks raised high – greet you at the entrance, as is the lion sigil on the walls of the pandal. The soldiers, as those in the movie, are sculpted to perfection and stand life-like to attention across the canvas.

The elephant sigil from the movie.(Photo Courtesy: Runa Mukherjee Parikh)

Hazra and his team of 60 used several raw materials to get the desired effect, including the perfect 'Mahishmati golden hue' paint for the entire pandal.

Of course, we used superior quality paint because we will have rains this year.

The lion sigil from the movie.(Photo Courtesy: Runa Mukherjee Parikh)

The goddess and her brood are, interestingly, wearing crowns styled around those worn by Bhalaldev and Amarendra Baahubali in the franchise.

Soldiers of the Mahishmati Kingdom.(Photo Courtesy: Runa Mukherjee Parikh)

The most fun element in the entire package might be the street lighting – every standalone lighting depicts iconic scenes from the film – from Baahubali teaching Devsena how to shoot three arrows at once, to the beloved king standing atop an elephant, shooting an arrow.

The crowns are also styled around the movie’s jewel-laden crowns.(Photo Courtesy: Runa Mukherjee Parikh)

Everything about Sreebhumi's Pujo celebration seems like a warm ode to the epic. So, if you are in Kolkata for Durga Pujo, you know where you should be, Baahubali fans!

(Runa Mukherjee Parikh has written on women, culture, social issues, education and animals, with The Times of India, India Today and IBN Live. When not hounding for stories, she can be found petting dogs, watching sitcoms or travelling. A big believer in ‘animals come before humans’, she is currently struggling to make sense of her Bengali-Gujarati lifestyle in Ahmedabad.)