This year, as Samir Pal, an artisan in north Kolkata’s sprawling potters’ colony of Kumartuli, was working on a Durga idol, from the corners of his eyes he saw a long camera lens dwelling on his face. Another pair of eyes looked from behind the lens. It wasn’t the kind of distraction that Pal needed at that critical moment when he was concentrating on drawing the eyes of the goddess—part-benevolent, part-severe, they are crucial to her myth.