Hidden among the oldest streets of Kolkata, Kumartuli is one of the most fascinating and authentic places in India. This small labyrinth of artisan workshops has been giving life to the enormous figures of Hindu gods that are used in some of the most important religious festivals in the country for more than 300 years.

As you walk through its narrow streets, giant sculptures of Durga, Shiva, Kali or Ganesha appear surrounded by mud, paint and straw. The artisans work completely by hand, molding every detail with techniques passed down from generation to generation. Many of the figures begin with bamboo skeletons tied with rope, which are then carefully covered with layers of mud from the Ganges River mixed with dried straw to shape them.

One of the most curious traditions of Kumartuli is that the first clay used to create the faces of some of the goddesses must symbolically contain soil collected in front of the door of a sex worker. According to Hindu tradition, this represents that all people, regardless of their origin or condition, are part of divine creation.

The neighborhood reaches its most special moment before the Durga Puja festival, when hundreds of finished sculptures fill the workshops and the streets look like an improvised open-air museum. After the celebrations, many of these enormous figures are carried in a procession and immersed in the Hooghly River as a symbol of the cycle of life, destruction and rebirth.

Between the smell of paint, traditional music and small workshops open to the public, Kumartuli shows a much more artistic, spiritual and human side of India.for India