Berhampur: Coinciding with Dussehra, display of dolls or ‘Bommala Koluvu’ has turned the house of M Venkat Rao, a retired Central government employee and wife M Padmavati at Braja Nagar 3rd Lane near All India Radio centre here, into a star attraction among the Telugu community here.

‘Bommala Koluvu,’ which is an integral part of the nine-day ‘Navratri Puja’, witnesses exhibition of more than 1,000 dolls of Puranic figures, animals, birds and also various poses of Yogasan in the house of Venkat Rao, a practice which the family has been following for four generations. The idols are arranged in the form of step-like horizontal arrays and thematically represent Astha Laxmi, Kailash Giri, Sri Krishna Leela, pose of yogasan, devotion of Meera Bai, some events from Ramayana, Hindu marriages, Naba Durga,Dasabatar, Sagar Manthan and others. They are having the earthen idol of Lord Krishna, which is 80 years old and Rath Yatra of three deities Lord Jagannath, Lord Balabhadra and Goddess Subhadra. Almost 99 per cent of these idols are made of earthen soil and others are of plastic, glass and other materials, said Venkat Rao.

Friends, relatives and well-wishers visit the house of Venkat Rao to see the ‘Koluvu’. They are given ‘prasad’ and ‘kumkum.’ The guests and the host chant devotional hymns and ‘shlokas’ at Koluvu when puja is performed in the evening. After performing the ‘puja,’ the food items that are offered to the goddess are served to the people, he said.

“Preserving the dolls and bringing them out during such occasions is a mammoth task, but an engaging one,” says Padmavati. “We went all the way to different places to buy some thematic dolls,” she adds. When‘Bommala Koluvu’ ends on Vijaya Dasami, the toys will be carefully taken out and preserved for next year.