Vishwakarma Puja was celebrated across Jharkhand on September 17, with machines and vehicles worshipped at HEC, Mecon, garages, showrooms and railway and electricity department offices in Ranchi, and a seven-day fair beginning in Bokaro.
It is a rare festival in which the object of worship is the working equipment itself. Instead of asking for something new, workers stop, clean the machines and thank the tools that make their livelihood possible.
There is a practical logic behind the ritual. A workshop that pauses once a year to clean, inspect and honour its machinery is also, in effect, doing a maintenance day, and few businesses would call that a wasted day.
The festival also flattens hierarchy in an unusual way, because the person at the lathe and the manager at the desk stand at the same pandal, worshipping the same deity of craft.
The broader lesson for any organisation is that recognising the tools and craft behind the work, and setting aside a day to do it, builds a kind of respect for work that a policy document rarely achieves.
In Bokaro, a Vishwakarma Puja was organised at Jhopdi Colony in the Marafari police station area, accompanied by a seven-day fair.
Headquarters DSP Pawan Kumar said adequate police force would be deployed during the fair for the safety of devotees.
A mini control room has been set up at the Bokaro fair to deal with any emergencies.
Markets in towns such as Khunti and Koderma saw extra footfall in the days before the puja, as workshops and showrooms prepared.
The festival is widely observed in West Bengal, Odisha, Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand and several other states, particularly by artisans and industrial workers.
A rain alert had been issued for parts of Jharkhand around the festival, though celebrations went ahead across the state.
The Sri Jagatguru Vishwakarma Temple in Ranchi, said to be a centre of faith since 1930, made special preparations for the day.
Vishwakarma Puja celebration, Duliajan, Assam, 2024 (representative image), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0