Once upon a time in the east of this incredible country, a family from the south painted a unique Durga Puja story of their own. Below is part 1 of the series.
When this writer was a wee girl, Durga Puja for the family started on Saptami evening. We would dress up after tea and make our rounds of the pandals in the locality, starting at our beloved Northern Park, Bhowanipore, which, like the Pole Star was a constant. And remains thus. The silly childish me decided to name the pandals we covered in our little reverse pradakshina, Southern and Eastern Park respectively. We never found one to the west and the little girl was always a trifle disappointed. Till her father told her that her home was to the west and there were major festivities on in our beloved home, which was indeed to the west.
Home was where the puja was for my mom who was incredibly rooted in the Tamil culture she had grown up with. Three things stood out for us as a family about our beloved paara (neighborhood) puja though - the dhaak and arati, the grandeur of Durga herself and the shehnai which was on the menu for the three main evenings. For my dad, there was a little adda with his cronies, some gentlemen on the organizing committee who had taken kindly to him. One of them, a particular pal of Dad's, was Mr Parbati Bhushan Bose, organizing secretary, and a noted communist at that! We paid a "chanda" of five rupees as our contribution towards the celebration expenses - a hefty sum in 1950 - and believe it or not, the five rupees continued all the way till 1981. Occasionally a bunch of youngsters would knock on our door in the weeks before the festival and Dad would tell them he'd visit the pandal and pay. For some reason I enjoyed the duty of handing the money over to Mr Bose, and collecting the receipt with my father's name filled in. Together with the receipt was a goody, the souvenir. A thick book with a black and white picture of the previous year's goddess on the glossy cover, it mostly contained pages and pages of trivia in English about the worthies on the committee, bits of poetry and prose in Bangla which my brother would read as he was the expert in Bengali, an occasional short boring prose piece in English and the audited accounts that I found great delight in running through as I grew older. Somewhere in one of those ancient trunks here, I'm sure to find one such book. One item in those accounts stands out - it read "Dhaki, shehnai and mike" - Rs 1001. And very likely that figure continued for decades with the dhaki likely being the soft target who was paid less and less each year as inflation set in (he constantly complained, did our old man dhaki - named Jhoduram Sardar as we came to know much later).
I grew older, my brothers left home and life started catching up. The Naxalite movement was on and evening celebrations tended to wind up early. And my mother started opening up with stories about her time in the fifties, taking the tram and riding to North Calcutta to see the "thakurs" there - yes it was called "thakur dekha" and not pandal hopping. Because ALL the pandals (marquee for the festivities) were the same boring tarpaulin over bamboo structures, waiting to leave the unwary with twisted ankles. They all had simple aesthetic cloth decor inside bearing the weight of an occasional lone chandelier or some pretty shaded lights. The altar where the magnificent deities stood were lighted up starkly with ordinary tubelights. And it was all so gorgeous and overwhelming because these grand clay deities exuded so much power and reassurance. There were ornamental lights placed at a few strategic locations outside and children would stare at them, fascinated, calling them the "running lights" - read about their origins here. I recall two of them in particular perched on cornices of the old buildings flanking the park, that would repeat annually like old friends we looked forward to meeting.
More stories emerged from the lips of Mamma Mia. They had taken my oldest brother aged seven or eight to Babughat to watch the immersion(yes the images are lowered into the river and the clay dissolves). And then I started to feel angry and quite offended that I'd been denied all these treats. Parents were getting older, they no longer had the enthu to haul me along to partake of the fun. Year after year I'd look at the front page picture of Durga being immersed, that graced the newspaper the following morning. Immersions took place strictly on Dashami. And I silently gritted my teeth and waited.
School days slipped into college days. The Naxalites went away - rather they were taken out - or they transformed into non-Naxalites. We started staying out later in the evenings. Slowly imperceptibly puja committees started small innovations. The first such in 1972 that came to our notice was a Durga made of jhinuk (mother-of-pearl) and the hoopla around it. My brother #2 - the aforementioned Bengali reader having come back home for a while we made a foray to see it, thanks to his clamoring and were not amused by the queue and the scramble. It was beautiful for sure. But something was missing. For days my neighbor aunty would agonize about what they'd do with it as they certainly couldn't immerse it. Which makes me fast forward to 2023 and wonder what they do with they images that are made of stuff other than clay. And all those trappings that go into making the magnificent artwork that has turned the festival into an extravaganza?
College got over, my parents left home(!) and I was left behind. The year was 1981 and I was busy "finding myself" as young people did back then. They say good things come to those who wait. And I had my comeuppance as I drifted my way quite by chance into my first "bhashan" as the visarjan (immersion) was rather irreverently called then. Of which more another day.
I am emotional today. Also sad because something doesn't feel right in my life or my heart this puja. The prospect of having to leave my city for good scares me. I hope the goddess will smile on me and turn that around. We have come a long way as a city. Puja committees would massacre trees back then in readiness for processions. Now KMC does it for them well in advance- not a good thing, then or now. Pandals would regularly catch fire and that's one thing that's been resolved now with all the regulations requiring the use of fireproof materials .. definitely a good thing.
While the canvas and bamboo with a trench dug around the whole affair had a rustic feel that still calls me in my memory, I am happy we have evolved to where we are today. And curious to know where we'll go from here. If I don't go bonkers before then!
Enjoy the festival whichever way calls it calls to you. Whether you're pious or spiritual or merely fun-loving, there's a rich and exciting layer for you to immerse yourself in. And that's way more than we had, growing up. All paths lead to joy and that's what the occasion is about. The Pujas were beautiful and meaningful and they will continue to be.
In another post I will talk about what happened to the Pujas post-1981. That's quite an exciting tale and today's young folks will be able to relate a lot better.
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