mumbai saroda sagar bashuri a master sculptor from viswabharati university santiniketan surveys the terracotta sets at the shivaji park durga puja and shouts instructions to the craftsmen on site bashuri and his team have been invited by the bengal club to oversee the authenticity and style of the pandal decoration scores of migrant artisans from bengal performing artistes and labourers arrive in mumbai during durga puja they are hard at work crafting idols and decorating puja pandals cooking authentic bengali delicacies or playing the dhak ethnic drum at various venues the organizers try to make them comfortable in small ways given that they spend the most important holiday of the year miles away from home bengal club spokesperson prasoon rakshit says we have around 1520 people from west bengal at work in our pandal we arrange independent hotel accommodation in dadar for senior artisans and this includes an attached bathroom and food the karigars or craftsmen are housed in lodges on a sharing basis of course we pay for all travel expenses to the city and back and within mumbai as well in borivli e the 61yearold sanskriti puja is hosting fourfive craftsmen from west bengal at the local club all their basic necessities are taken care of honestly few artisans complain because this is the time of the year when they earn well says senior member a k mukherjee the thakur village bengali association in kandivli regularly invites leading bengali singers including nachiketa lopamudra and the band bhoomi to perform this year surojit the lead singer of bhoomi is in mumbai only for a day so we will put him up in a vacant flat in oberoi garden says spokesperson chinmoy roy he laughs and says the tallest bengali artistes have no demands they opt for modest hotels and ordinary cars but lesser artistes of reality tv shows demand specific cars for pickup and pricey accommodation