This year's Durga Puja is behind us. It is the biggest celebration among the Bengali people. It has evolved from being a religious festival to a socio-cultural phenomenon - a time for joy, fun, and merriment. A time when gifts are exchanged, people get new clothes, travel (because schools and offices are closed) or make capital purchases for their homes with the bonus from employers.But Durga Puja to me has always brought in mixed emotions. I am always disturbed by the striking contrast of the affluence and extravaganza with which it is celebrated, particularly in and around the metropolitan Calcutta, now Kolkata [the name changed after I had left the country; I find it difficult to say or write Kolkata. I still prefer Calcutta, my birthplace, the city where I had spent my formative years, the city where I moved from childhood to adulthood] and the stark poverty. So much of pomp and grandeur and yet, right outside the glamour of the mandaps [these are temporary structures put up to house the idols of goddess Durga and her four children] is darkness - both real and symbolic. One has to be blind not to see this or be desensitized not to feel it.
Two days before this year's puja, the Nano project [India's effort to come up with the USD 2000 car] moved out of West Bengal. This could have been Bengal's pride. People associated with the project lost their livelihood; some lost all their savings/investment, and most importantly, hope. Mind it; this happened right before the puja - the day when most factory workers typically get their bonuses and do the last minute shopping for their eagerly waiting kids. That one piece of new cloth brings in so much joy. I cried at the plight of these people. I could empathize with these people. I know suffering, the pain of starvation, the indignity of going home empty handed, the misery of deep loss. I only wish Mamata [the political leader behind the failure. Her name is a misnomer. Mamata in Bengali means kindness] had some kindness.
My dada (the Bengali word for elder brother) sent me an email greetings for the Puja. He rightly characterized the changes in puja celebration these days. The smell of the "Shiuli" flowers (quintessential autumn flower was so common even in the city during this time of the year when we were growing up) is gone. Pizza and pasta have taken over Moghlai Khana (Bengali for royal dish from the Moghul period!?) that we used to savor during the puja days with our pocket money. Globalization and call centers have increased the divide between the rich and the poor. Competition among the local puja organizers is so intense these days that the organizers spend millions of dollars for a simple plaque, for bragging rights for the entire next year. Traditional mandap set-ups are replaced by novel themes representing current world events and trends. Innovation and creativity in material selection (e.g. rice, caps from Coke, etc.), lighting, and every aspect of the celebration. Yet, right outside the puja premise, there may be a poor kid in his tattered clothes sucking on a Popsicle stick thrown away by someone else. This also must be a theme - my dada sighed in his note. Not that this doesn't happen every day but it doesn't get so strikingly exposed. This is what so tormenting, heart wrenching about Durga Puja.
We celebrated Puja in Memphis in our own way - the "Twenty-Twenty" equivalent of Cricket. Life in the fast lane (or is it so? do we small-towner NRIs love to think) forced us to squeeze five days of puja into one and that too after the actual puja is over. Convenience of weekend rules! Idiosyncrasies (where the priest won't do the puja) and availability of rental space all adds to the planning challenge. Despite that, we had fun. And to allow time for the ladies to show their latest acquisitions (Saree and ornaments) there was a "break" between the daytime puja and the evening event. We even had an evening cultural program for the local Bongs to showcase their talent and to claim that they are still in touch with the Bengali culture, often at the cost of completely alienating the audience. It is high time for some of these long time performers to retire. [By the way, why can't we learn from Bengal's pride Sourav who declared his retirement from International Cricket on the day of the Ashtami (8th day of the puja)?]
Since, Durga puja is a time to spend with your family and friends, a deep void in our lives re-surfaced. Moments like these, times of celebrations like this revive the memory of gifts that are lost forever. One craves for that piece of one's heart that is carved out with no treatment known to mankind to heal.
Top right is my reflection in Bengali of how the puja break this year was spent. Click on the image to get a more legible version.
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© 2008 Sanjoy Haldar
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