New Delhi: Its a day for new beginnings - burn your personal demons and start afresh, they say. But here's one woman who finds it a tad difficult to see her demons charred.
Shakila Bano is an artisan who's produced a record number of effigies and is distinctly known for her penchant for Ravans.
Shakila has been carrying forward her forefathers' legacy of making the king of demons and she thinks that Ravan sure looks like a hero.
She is probably the only woman in the country or maybe even the world to make effigies of Ravan.
In town to put together a 40-feet high Lanka for the biggest Ramlila committee in the Capital, she is competing with effigy-makers thronging every street of the Capital in September.
So what makes Shakila stand out?
Says a Ramlila organiser, Vishwanath Gupta, "The fact that she uses cloth rather than paper makes her craft unique."
Leading an entourage of 14 people from her village, Shakila has been diligently chipping away at her bamboo this Ramlila for over two weeks. And like an indulgent mother, she is quick to defend Ravan.
However, the toughest moments, she says, come after the work is over. The irony of this artist's work is that her labour of several days is created solely to be cast into the flames.
"I don't stay around when they burn him," says she.
Shakila has come a long way - from a small village in Madhya Pradesh to the Capital's biggest Ramlila. But this 42-year-old woman, who may not be earning as much as she wishes to, is definitely yearning for more - she now wants to take her art abroad.
But for now, dreams can wait, with Dusshera here.
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