Durge Durgati Naashini

Durga puja for me is MA-made clothes.  My mother never attended any formal tailoring classes but has the best acumen of measurement ….she would sew clothes for people staying in Kolkata…perfect fitting…and in perfect taste.  Every year, my B’Day would come either in the same month or a month prior to the Puja.  So, the new dress in B’Day….usually a frock or a skirt/top sewn by ma for the occasion of my B’Day would be worn on Saptami.  For Ashtami… In the morning, I would wear a saree (borrowed fom Ma) ……and we would go to the railway colony puja pandal to offer pushpanjali and accept bhog prasad….for the evenings, ma would either buy a new pair of trendy clothes or sew another frock. 

I kept wearing frocks past the age when my contemporaries switched on to other forms of clothing.  Somehow, we never questioned….we were happy and proud of and with whatever was provided by parents…our choice was what was laid by them…..we were happy since our needs were limited.  

Durga puja for me is paye hanta (walking), baba’s two wheeler, a grey coloured bajaj scooter and a fiat car.  Mukherjee kaku, an old friend of my father…..owned an olive green fiat car that was big enough to accommodate eight persons of two families.  In that car we would hit the farthest puja destinations, located at the outskirts of the steel city.  When we were young, my baba would return from his shift at the steel plant, take a shower to wash off the coke, get dressed and take us around to visit the different puja pandals, mostly on foot, on the first day, by the fiat car of kaku on Mahashtami and by his bike on the Navami puja. 

We never realized that after facing such hardships in the Coke-Oven Department in the hazardous work environment of the steel plant, wherefrom baba got so much energy to visit the pandals till late in the night and resume work the day after?

Durga puja for me is eating out…..usually in roadside dhabas….rumali rotis and butter chicken…masala dhosa…foochka….

Durga pooja for me is …riding and screaming in the nagordola (the giant wheel) and merry go round installed in the fair put up in the puja venue of Sec-16.  Each sector had a separate puja and sometimes more than one puja.  It also meant shooting at balloons and missing the hits with the rings …..

Durga puja for me is MA– made sweets…patti shapta, dudh puli, rosh bora…..and a variety of interesting snacks.  Dada and I would plan out in advance when to visit which family so that the hosts are satisfied with our feeding prowess and that we do justice to the hard work of the mashis and kakis…..Both of us had lion’s appetites and were a source of delight for all the autnies whose kids fussed while eating…

The first time when we came over to Kolkata from Rourkela during Durga Puja, we were but awestruck.   Impermeable traffic, late night life, huge pandals, complex and interesting lighting patterns, larger than life effigies, vast variety of food, maddening crowd and cultural shows in every nook and corner…. The quiet lanes in the planned steel township stood is stark contrast to the puja décor and glamour in Kolkata.  Another attraction was the gifts showered on us by the kind relatives…the variety of clothes we had….the range of choice….

Dada and I would devour time on soaking in the intricately designed pandals….. the eyes of the goddess, the posture of the buffalo demon, the costume and the interior decorations of the pandal…while our relatives were busy calling us out to proceed to the next destination.  There were sea-like crowds flowing in from all directions, but other than those with whom we were moving around…none of the faces were known.  Back in Rourkela, more than the goddess our eyes would be roaming in search of other classmates and friends visiting the pandals.  We would sit around in the pandals in large groups…children playing under the watchful eyes of parents, mothers engaged in gossips and sharing recipes for the Vijaya Dashami and the fathers planning for the next rendezvous.  The big city of Kolkata was too big to acknowledge or wait for us to realize our small dreams….

Here in Gujarat….Durga Puja is my sole ray of hope towards keeping alive the bengalee roots in my half bengalee-half gujarati offsprings.  Wearing aalta, donning the white saree with red border in the typically bengalee way on all puja days…wearing saree to office during the puja days, putting shindur, wearing shankha, offering pushpanjali and queuing up to accept bhog Prasad, listening to the cultural programmes much after the  midnight …… all these and more were never so important till I chose to marry in a Gujarati family….For me it was sort of conflicting….I learnt the steps of garba and dandia but also tried to woo away the kids matching their steps to the drums, urging them to leave the garba ground and visit the puja pandals.  I like to observe fasting during the Navaratra but the stalls put up in the pandals tempt me to extremes.....I buy Ghaghra cholis but keep on wearing sarees...

In Ahmedabad, there are several puja mandaps by the local bengalee associations. One of them is celebrating the 75^th puja this year.  Apart from the excellent administration of the puja rituals, crowd management at the Panktibhojan there is planned execution of a variety of cultural programmes by artistes of scaling fame from Kolkata.  For me Durga Puja in Ahmedabad is a living throbbing proof of my identity which gets strengthened amidst the grip of the festive spirit of Navaratri…..

Bolo Durga Mai Ki…JOI

( I wrote this on request of my dear cousin Moharotno.....)