Standing among the broken remains of hundreds of clay idols in his workshop in India’s Raigad district, sculptor Dilip Mhatre struggles to hold back his emotions.
Just weeks before Ganesh Chaturthi, one of the country’s biggest religious festivals honouring the Hindu deity Ganesha, floods have destroyed six months of his work.
The 40-year-old had completed about 500 clay idols of the elephant-headed god, worth around 800,000 rupees ($8,300; £6,200), which were due to be delivered across the western state of Maharashtra, where Raigad is located, over the coming weeks.
“But the flood washed everything away,” he says. “We have no idols, no moulds and no raw material. We don’t know how we’ll fulfil the orders now.”
Mhatre’s loss is part of a wider crisis unfolding in Raigad.
Every year, millions of families and community groups install clay idols of Ganesha during Ganesh Chaturthi before immersing them in water at the end of the celebrations.
Most of those idols are made in Raigad, where some 20,000 workshops produce up to eight million idols each year. The industry provides seasonal employment to around 150,000 people and generates around 3.5bn rupees in annual sales, making it the economic backbone of many families in the region.
This year, however, floods have damaged thousands of idols and hundreds of workshops, disrupting supplies and threatening the livelihoods of thousands of artisans.
“Around a million Ganesh idols were damaged by heavy rains across the district,” says Sachin Patil, president of the Ganesh Murtikar Utkarsh Mandal, an association representing idol makers in the region.
He said around 3,000 idol-making workshops were affected by the rain.
Local authorities have started surveying the damage. Government official Tanaji Shejal told BBC Marathi that financial assistance would be provided under government rules once the assessments were completed.
Heavy monsoon rain is a regular feature in Maharashtra, and Raigad’s sculptors have long learnt to protect their workshops from seasonal flooding.
This year, however, the downpour overwhelmed their usual defences.
Raigad received more than 548mm (21.6in) of rain between 5 and 7 July – almost as much as the 663mm recorded during the whole of July last year, according to India’s weather department. The deluge overwhelmed rivers and drainage systems, triggering widespread flooding across the district.
Sculptors say they are used to protecting their workshops by covering them with plastic sheets and raising the idols above ground.
But this time, days of torrential rain and strong winds overwhelmed those defences as floodwaters rose several feet.
“In the past, rainwater would collect in the village but never reach the workshop area,” says Mhatre.
“This time, everything was washed away.”
Many artisans lost not only finished idols but also moulds and raw materials such as clay and plaster of Paris, making it impossible to start again.
Making a Ganesh idol is a labour-intensive process involving moulding, casting, sculpting, drying and painting. Even a small idol, selling for about $5-$8, can take up to two weeks to complete. Larger idols for community celebrations can cost tens of thousands of rupees and take weeks to make.
Mhatre estimates this year’s floods have cost him about 1.2m rupees.
Idol-making is his family’s only source of income and has paid for household expenses and his children’s education for three decades.
Now he has been forced to tell customers that he cannot fulfil their orders.
“People were disappointed but we simply had no alternative,” he says, adding that he is planning to take a loan and return customers’ advance payments.
For many artisans, the damage is irreversible. Most rain-soaked idols cannot be sold, they told BBC Marathi, and only those with minor damage can sometimes be dried, repaired and reused.
Some workshop owners had insurance, but they say the payouts are unlikely to cover their losses.
Anita Patil, 53, who owns an idol-making workshop in Kalve village, is one of them.
“If the actual loss is 1m rupees, the insurance payout may be only around 10,000 rupees,” she says.
“There are many conditions attached to these policies and getting meaningful compensation is not easy.”
She says the floods have thrown off their entire production cycle. “So many of our idols have been soaked that we don’t even know which ones can be salvaged.”
Recovery could take months – or even years – for some workshops.
The impact is likely to extend beyond Raigad, with sculptors warning that some international orders may now be delayed.
“International demand had already slowed because of the global economy,” says Patil.
“Now the floods will delay some overseas orders. We may have to rely on sculptors outside Raigad to fulfil them.”
The floods have forced many sculptors to rethink how they prepare for future monsoons.
Some plan to install permanent plastic roofing, raise platforms and strengthen barriers, while others say they will move idols indoors or to higher ground when heavy rain is forecast.
But those changes will have to wait. With Ganesh Chaturthi just weeks away, the immediate priority is salvaging whatever they can and honouring customer orders.
Sculptor Mahendra Patil has spent days calling neighbouring workshops in the hope of sourcing replacement idols, but says the chances are slim.
“With the festival so close, it is impossible to remake the same number of idols,” he says. “If we cannot source idols from elsewhere, we will have to refund the advance payments.”
Across Raigad, workshops submerged only days ago are slowly returning to life. Artists are drying and repairing whatever idols they can save, clearing debris and trying to salvage a season many feared was lost.
Few expect to recover financially anytime soon, but most say abandoning the craft that has sustained their families for generations is not an option.
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