Asian Paints Sharad Shamman

Asian Paints Sharad Shamman
Asian Paints Sharad Shamman
Awarded for	Excellence in artistic achievements
Country	Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Presented by	Asian Paints
First awarded	October, 1985
Official website	www.asianpaints.com

Asian Paints Sharad Shamman (Bengali: এশিয়ান পেইন্টস শারদ সম্মান) is an excellence award given to the best decorated Durga Puja Pandal in Kolkata during the festival in October. Since its inception in 1985, Asian Paints Sharad Shamman has been heralded as the true achievement for excellence in decorating the abodes for Goddess Durga. As time has progressed there have been numerous awards being given by many other companies for creative excellence, but still Asian Paints Sharad Shamman is considered the most important award and the rightful judgement for excellence. It is a trend setter for all the later awards.

"Asian Paints Sharad Shamman" was started in 1985 as a means for awarding the best decorated puja pandal during Durga Puja in Kolkata. Sharad means "Autumn (as the festival takes place at that season) " and Shamman means "Award/Respect", and was sponsored by Asian Paints, hence the name Asian Paints Sharad Shamman. Out of about 3000 puja pandals in Kolkata, few get shortlisted and among them six are given the awards.

Total six awards are given to six puja pandals. When Sharad Shamman started in 1985 only three awards were given to three Best Puja pandals. From 1994 a special award called "Discovery of the Year" was introduced to honour a completely unknown pandal for its excellence. This 4 categories were continued for the next six years. But in 2000 Asian Paints felt the awards were too similar, there was no demarcation to identify Best Decoration of the pandal or the Best looking Idol. Hence in 2000 two new categories were introduced - "Creative Excellence", which focussed on the Best decorated Pandal, and "Best Artisan", given to the artist of the Best looking Idol. At present these six categories represent Asian Paints Sharad Shamman. Some of the parameters for awarding the pandals include the overall beauty and grandeur of a pandal based on a chosen theme, the beauty of the Durga protima, how well the sanctum of the protima has been shown, and the finesse in the work done on the pandal.

years active (1985–present)

This award was the first award given when APSS started in 1985. Three puja pandals are selected based on everything, i.e., Decorative excellence, best looking idol, ambiance, lighting etc. No demarcations are there like winner, first runner-up: instead all three pujas are considered to be the Best Puja. Normally winners in these category used to be the well-known Pujas, but nowadays many unknown Pujas have cropped up with the technical excellence to bag this award. At present, Durga Pujas in Kolkata are more theme oriented. Some specific theme like Madhubani art or earthen cups or a place like Kerala, will be the base for the decoration. In 2001, "Bosepukur Sitalamandir" decorated its pandal completely of earthen cups and was so popular that it won the Best Puja award hands down. There have been many Pujas which has won this award many times. "Adi Ballygunge" leads the list with five wins. A puja, once been declared a winner in this list cannot be declared in the "Discovery of the Year" award though it can win "Creative Excellence" or "Best Artisan" award.