Image Courtesy: Sumit Naskar

With the commencement of Mahalaya, West Bengal starts bathing in the joy of Durga Puja which starts with Mahasaptami – exactly after seven days. (In 2020, the gap between Mahalaya and commencement of Durga Puja is longer than usual.) There can be immense joy and elation seen in all the individuals irrespective of their age. This is the most awaited time of the year and often leaves people teary-eyed during the end. While there are many different styles of the décor in different places, there are some things that are common and traditional since ages.

Maa Durga is a Hindu Goddess who symbolises power, strength and dignity present in a woman. She is considered as an incarnation of Lord Shiva’s wife Parvati and the festival commemorates the victory of the goddess over a demon called Mahishasura. According to Hindu mythology, she started the battle against the demon on the seventh day of Navratri, known as Maha Saptami and slayed him by the final day of Vijay Dashami. The centric idol placed in all the pandals depicts the scene when the Goddess slashes the demon with her weapon while sitting on her vehicle- the lion.

It is believed that Durga visits her paternal home during the Navratris along with her children. She can be seen accompanied by the idols of her children namely Lord Ganesh, Lord Kartikeya, Goddess Laxmi and Goddess Saraswati, in almost all the pandals. So, with celebrations and decorations all around, have you ever wondered the history behind it? How was this culture born and how is it continuing to surface every year?

History of Durga Puja

Talking about the past, worshipping Maa Durga has been dated back to late 1500s. Even though there is no textual evidence of the same, it is believed to have been landlords, or zamindar, of Dinajpur and Malda who initiated the puja. It was then followed by twelve friends of Guptipara in Hoogly, West Bengal, who started the tradition of community puja by collecting funds from local residents, naming it as “baro-yaari’ puja, or the ‘twelve-pal’ puja, in 1790. “The baro-yaari puja gave way to the sarbajanin or community puja in 1910, when the Sanatan Dharmotsahini Sabha organized the first truly community puja in Baghbazar in Kolkata with full public contribution, public control, and public participation. Now the dominant mode of Bengali Durga Puja is the ‘public’ version,” wrote M. D. Muthukumaraswamy and Molly Kaushal in Folklore, Public Sphere, and Civil Society.

Durga Puja in Kolkata & Rest of West Bengal

The festival has now become a huge endeavor and is celebrated with utter delight in various parts of the country especially West Bengal. The state is filled with more than thousands of pandals with exclusive and elite lighting spread throughout the roads. The capital of the state, Kolkata, witnesses great crowd in the day but the city surely doesn’t sleep during the night too. People, dolled up in their best of clothing, walk across the streets to feel the Pujo, and enjoy the ethereal lighting and magnificent themed-pandals. The city notices ample tourists during the time and everyone seems to contribute and participate in the celebrations.

From households to residential complexes to the neighborhoods, everyone gets ready to welcome Maa Durga in their own way. The pandals are made with such creativity and perfection that it becomes difficult to choose the top-scorer among those. Not only are the pandals decorated, but you can also see different ways of art demonstration in every area. One such installation includes a kilometer long auspicious painting or ‘alpana’ drawn on the Lake Road, that went viral on social media and left many of the famous personalities spell-bound. Some of the pandals are so high-profile that celebrities from Bollywood or politics are summoned to inaugurate them. These pandals are scrutinized and the best of them is declared as the top most pandal of the year.

The themes selected for pandals are very innovative and creative depicting social, political or environmental ideas. Some pujas refer to the water-crisis, while some shows criticism over pollution; some are decorated like the movie Baahubali sets, while some incorporated Jurassic Park with dinosaurs. The idols are molded as per theme and each of them bestows different expressions and novelty. The sight is mesmerizing and draws thousands of people parading on the streets tirelessly throughout the night. As Durga Puja marks the grand festival in the city, all offices, educational institutions and business houses remain closed either for the whole Navratri or the last four days of the celebration.

Residential complex and housing colonies organize different activities and competitions to aptly enjoy the occasion and flaunt their talents. These activities include dance/singing competition, fancy dress competition, talent hunt, etc.. Apart from pandal hopping, there are other places that attracts youngsters too and those are DJ’s, Disco-Dandiya, organized by various hotels and banquets. If you are a foody, this grand festival fills your appetite with best of foods available at every footstep. You can opt for some posh restaurants or can mingle with street foods available throughout the night.

The tenth day, Vijay Dashmi, is started with the ‘Sindur Khela’, where the married women offer sindur to the Goddesses followed by applying the sindur to female friends, family or neighbors. This marks the end of the ten days celebration and beginning of the Visarjan, where the idols are immersed into the water with great pomp and dance. The devotees bids farewell to Maa Durga, and are filled with remorse and sadness but with relief that they would witness the same pompous show next year too.

Other States – Navaratri or Dusshera

Apart from Bengal, many other states celebrate Durga Puja in their own way with grace and elegance. Navratri is celebrated by performing Garba and Dandiya in states like Gujarat and Maharashtra respectively. The Mysore Palace in Karnataka is decorated as a royal bride with more than a lakh light on Vijay Dashmi making it a fortune to watch.

The citizens of Punjab, who are considered great devotees of Maa Durga, organize daily jagrans during the nine nights of the festival. These are some of the most famous Navratri celebrations in India. One way or the other, Durga Puja is and will be one of the most awaited and enthusiastic festivals of India.

About Pooja Sahal

Pooja has done her B.Tech in IT. To devote her time to her family while feeding the writer in her, she has started writing blogs and freelancing for a long time. She’s prompt, understands the needs of clients, efficient and believes in delivering her work on time.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this post are the personal views of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of www.kolkatafusion.wordpress.com. Any omissions or errors are the author’s and KolkataFusion does not assume any liability or responsibility for them.

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A reflection

About two years ago, we self-invited ourselves to be a part of the Durga Puja celebrations of the Datta Household of Mathmalaypur, located in the Hooghly District of West Bengal. One of our close friends happen to be a member of this household and it was on his insistence, we, two non-religious persons, decided to spend two days observing the core rituals practiced to venerate Goddess Durga. There was, however, another factor which propelled me. My mother’s one of the last wishes was to observe a family Durga Puja in her lifetime. Since she couldn’t before she died, I had to.

It was an Ashtami afternoon. As we got down from a local train, a cab was waiting for us at the station. The autumn heat has begun to fade out as we advanced to the house on a red gravelly road in between the swaying green paddy fields.

The cab parked in front of a nondescript house, where our friend was waiting to welcome us. The house, partially made of mud and partially of concrete, seemed as if it has come out from the pages of Bengali folklores or quintessentially Bengali stories that had a village in its backdrop. Straw roofs, an open space in the middle housing indigenous paddy storage made of straw termed locally as a morai or dhaaner gola, a pond in the backyard, and a Thakurdalan or the designated space where Goddess Durga is worshipped every year by the household members.

Related: স্মৃতির দুর্গাপুজো – ২০১৭

Gradually, we started meeting the other members of the household. Each of them, be them the elder members or the younger generation, were very warm. It was their warm gesture which made us feel at home, almost instantly. Our adda sessions continued till all of us were alerted about the Evening Arati time. The lady brigade of the house took me with them to the Thakurdalan, where they were preparing the nitty-gritty of the Arati, as well as the Sandhi Puja which was to follow later in the evening. I couldn’t say a hurting ‘No’ to their excitement when they made me a part in their preparations. I might not believe in the concept of deities and their invocations, but, at the end of the day, I am a human being and I have no right to disrespect the feelings of the people who put their faith in religions and rituals. While helping them, I began to jitter initially. Images of my mother worshipping in our house flashed my mind several times when I lined up the unlit earthen lamps to be lit during the Sandhi Puja. However, my clumsiness, when got encouragement from the brigade, became a sigh of relief to me.

With the dimming of the Sun, the Arati started. Our friend and a few other family members took turns in dancing with the earthen incense burners or Dhunuchis. The remaining, non-dancing members, rang the kanshor-ghontas, along with the drum beats by the dhakis who came from a nearby village. The in-house priest danced with the panchapradip, meanwhile. The Arati rituals transported me to a state of trance, for a short time. It is said that the high pitched songs are sung or sounds made in any religious place, can briefly bring upon a state of trance in the people visiting these places. This state of trance can turn one’s mind blank for a few seconds, and that’s the time when the one comes near to God. I don’t know whether I could go near to someone called God, whom I don’t believe, during the brief state trance felt by me then, but my mind weary from thoughts of my late parents felt more relaxed thereafter. After the Arati, the members along with us sat together on the floor of the mud house for the evening muri–alur torkari. The food was filling, nevertheless, but, what filled our hearts was the inherent humility in the household. One can achieve great feats in life, but, to remain grounded with humility, is what makes the person a Man, on the real sense of the term. It’s difficult to stay humble when you start possessing material wealth, but, the Datta household members, carried this attribute on their sleeves with elan. They didn’t have to pretend, they truly showed us, how to be.

Chitchats followed after we had done with the light evening meal. We began to gather again near the Thakurdalan, for the Sandhi Puja rituals. The Sandhi Puja happens to be a significant ritual invoking the mythological moment when Goddess Durga won over Mahisasura. My mother used to say that if the Sandhi Puja rituals are done with great respect then the clay idol of Goddess Durga appears to be alive, albeit for a minuscule time. I recalled these words when the priest began chanting the hymns. The drums started beating a different rhythm, the kanshor-ghontas followed, marking the end of the Sandhi Puja ritual and the 108 lamps were lit. The face of the idol shone in the lamp lights. It appeared as if the Goddess had come alive. Was it? Or, maybe, I was briefly hallucinated by the drum beats, the constant ringings of the kanshor-ghonta, and the profound Sanskrit chants of the priest which literally meant to invoke Goddess Durga to arrive and fight the evils. Whatever it was, I found myself to be quiet for the rest of the night. “Faith can move mountains”, they say, and here, I could feel it, truly.

On the next day, Navami, my eyes opened when a whiff of fragrant Shiuli or Night Jasmine, blew across my face. The intoxicating fragrance made me ran to its source and oh! what did I see there?! A flowery rangoli depicting Rose made from the Shiuli flowers, upon the brown mud floor. The Shiuli trees, the ponds, and the lush greenery beckoned us to explore the area. We could spot a few local birds here and there. One of our friend’s family members showed us around their premises. The paddy fields they own and the cowshed which housed cows many years ago. After the brief tour, we gathered in the Thakurdalan again. The Navami puja had started by that time. The same place looked so different that morning. The illuminations from the Ashtami evening had culminated in a vibrant Navami morning.

Many visitors like us had come from far and wide. Those who were accustomed to Durga Puja Kolkata seemed mesmerized here. We chatted, they chatted, and the chatters never stopped. To me, the Durga Puja had always been a festival which brought us together from different walks of life and that day the entire household became the same milieu which we long for, every Autumn. Our never-ending chatters would have continued if not we were called for the lunch, at the same place where we had eaten in the evening, all of us together, sitting on the mud floor. The menu was not special. Who among us cannot have a platter of mutton and rice whenever we want, generally speaking? But the food served on that afternoon was made special by the people there, our hosts, the batch-eating on the same floor and the overall ambiance.

We left the place, after lunch, with a heavy heart. Our mundane lives, our artificially glittering Kolkata was beckoning us. As we sped past the green paddy fields again, I knew I had to go back again, there, maybe during the next Autumn again, just to feel the same, twice.

P.S: Sometimes, it is not easy to explain some events with mere words. This event was of that kind. It was foolish of me to even try, but I could not stop myself to write about that one and a half-day spent in the Datta household, during an Autumn Durga Puja. 

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