In Durga's image

This Durga Puja perhaps we could send up a prayer for more such enlightened judgments so the law can set women free wherever they are in chains

There is an abandoned movie hall near my home in Delhi’s Chittaranjan Park. Faded red lettering on its scabbed, peeling walls say that it’s called Chandralok. It shows up on Google maps too as Chandralok Cinema although no movie plays there anymore. The place is silent. Derelict. A piece of prime real estate which, for some mysterious reason, has not yet had been subjected to the builder’s wrecking ball.

I go there one evening because I recently came to know that it houses artisans from Bengal for a few months every year. They make idols for Durga Pujas that are