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Festive Business
Although
accused of blatant commercialisation, organisers of Durga poojas in Delhi
and elsewhere are an unfazed lot. India Today's Ipshita
Banerjee relates their reasoning.
The
blessings of Ma Durga and our sponsors made all this
possible," says Arun Roy, general secretary of Delhi's
Chittaranjan Park Milan Samiti (CPMS). All this in this case is
the most opulent Durga puja the city has seen in over a century of celebrations.
The pandal for the idol—an artistic depiction of
the Devi riding a chariot drawn by two spirited horses—was a 30
ft by 20 ft makeshift cane temple that rivaled the Chhatarpur
temple complex.
Roy's gratitude
to sponsors is understandable. The bill for the
five-day festivities added up to more than Rs 30 lakh and almost
the entire sum came from sponsorships and advertisements. HDFC, Hyundai,
Sahara had all chipped in for this primarily
Bengali festival. Not just in cash but also in kind. Multinationals queued
up to give prizes in sports competitions, some like Milo
distributed free drinks to children and even TV channels like
National Geographic and MTV found it worth their while to
market their products and services. In return: dollops of public
goodwill, besides "complimentary stalls".
Scouting
round for sponsors is a major part of organising such
shows. Little wonder then that builder Jadav Chandra Dey, who
brought in more than Rs 4 lakh to the puja kitty, was the
president of the Cooperative Puja Samiti. Companies were broached mainly
through local contacts, but corporatisation was also tapped. Puja samitis
prepared brochures with pictures indicating the scale of arrangement and
the prime ad spots. Past records were a big help.
For Roy,
a former football player who now works in the Audit
Department, it was as difficult as the first time. Following up
with sponsors to ensure that they kept up their word was no easy task.
Till the last minute, all payments had been promisory—Nanipal, an
idol maker was paid only Rs 101 for a masterpiece worth more than Rs 2
lakh. But as he prepared to
immerse the Devi in the Yamuna on Dussehra, Roy was satisfied:
they had harnessed more than they had spent. The older pujas were more
confident. "The sponsors themselves approach us," says Utpal
Dey of the CPS. Pepsi and Sahara were the
most forthcoming among the dozen odd corporates who sponsored the event.
The bookings started about two months in advance. And the early birds
got the best stalls. The rates for the stalls ranged between Rs 10,000
to Rs 50,000 depending upon the size, products and location. Also up for
grabs were advertisement banners—even the stage for the cultural
shows had a prominent brand name. But though the stall rents and banner
ads did bring in some cash, it was the sponsorships
which contributed about 70 percent of the budget. This was a sea change
from the past when local residents used to cough up more than 70 per cent
of the costs as donations. "Those were different times. In the 1980s,
a community puja would have cost Rs 1 lakh. But expectations have risen.
A grand idol is not enough. It is the extras that have become essential,"
says
Aninda Rakhit, a CPMS member.
The essentials
include shopping arcades, food stalls but most
important of all a grand pandal. For the CPMS mandap, bamboos were brought
from Tripura. And the bill for these were about five times that of the
idol. For good reason: "The pandals decide the ad rates," says
Utpal Dey, general secretary of CPS, which spent
close to Rs 5 lakhs on a mandap decorated with sea shells. "These
are real shells. We brought over three quintals of shells from Orissa
and south India." Their idol, adjudged the best in Delhi, cost about
Rs 60,000. The more mundane expenses included Rs 3 lakh for bhog (about
20,000 lunches were provided daily), Rs 2.5 lakh for the cultural shows
("many Kolkata artists performed here") and a mere Rs 25,000
for hiring a security agency—a must since 1993 when Punjab militants
attacked a Kali puja gathering in the colony.
But it is
not just extravagance that multinationals sponsor as
Prabal Sengupta, a Delhi University lecturer, testifies. He and his team
organises a small puja in Chittaranjan Park, the mini-Kolkata of Delhi
which boasts of nine major events. The Purbanchal Puja Samiti spent only
about Rs 3 lakh—about a tenth of its opulent peers. But like them
its finances came from sponsorships. Contributions added up to only a
fourth of the costs while the ads paid for the rest. "Middle-class
families cannot afford to
contribute to nine pujas," says Sengupta. The ad rates though are
vastly different. According to him, while TVS Suzuki paid Rs
2 lakh for a bunting at the famous Mela Ground puja 300 m
away, it paid only Rs 50,000 to Purbanchal. While the conservatives frown
upon such blatant commercialisation of a festival of piety, the organisers
are far from apologetic. "We are almost austere in our economy,"
says Dey. "We have been able save enough to buy an ambulance for
the colony." Last year it was an x-ray machine for the local dispensary
and next year
they plan to buy a hearse. The cps is also thinking of hiring an event
management company next year. The business of puja is certainly gathering
strength.
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