Mumbai, Oct. 12 -- What do you do with a pen once it runs out of ink? For Dhubri-based artist Pradip Kumar Ghosh, the answer is simple: give it a second life.

Thousands of pens and markers that might otherwise have ended up in the bin have taken the shape of a six-foot-tall Durga idol this Puja. Made from around 7,000 discarded pieces, the idol is the latest creation in Ghosh's ongoing waste-reuse initiative.

Ghosh, a private tutor by profession, has spent nearly four months working on the idol, which will be displayed at the Usha Sangha Durga Puja pandal in the Vishnu Cinema Hall lane of Dhubri town in Assam.

The unusual choice of material is in keeping with a practice he has followed for more than three decades, using discarded objec...