Durga Pujo As I Remember

Credits : Vaskar Koley

It’s the sky I love during this particular time. A sky that welcomes autumn, a hint of cold in the air, although Kolkata weather hasn’t been the same since last couple of years. This advent of autumn means Durga Pujo for Bengalis. The months of September-October is a period of transition; from awaiting for the festival of joy to commence to grieving when it gets over and entering the phase of waiting again. Most people find it hard to adjust when the streets, adorned in brightness for four consecutive days, falls into darkness again. If you ask them, they will tell you about their variations, their experiences, their meanings of this celebration. Durga Pujo is one such feeling for me too.

Maybe not exactly the type people assume. Durga Pujo, as I was growing up, meant stepping into a one month holiday, and not touching books for those few days of pujo. It meant I could stay at home, with my parents, and watch television or play games on computer. Usually, pujo means buying new set of clothes, coordinated with each day and going out for pandal hopping. For me, none of it mattered. I was happy that I got to stay at home and sleep. Oh yes, I slept till twelve in the afternoon and sometimes skipped breakfast. I missed ashtami’s anjali a few times. My mother often had to try and drag me out to visit pandals that were close by. I would reluctantly agree to it.

For me, Durga Pujo meant buying a new cap gun and paper gun rolls. After pleading my mother, she would get me a plastic gun and I would get upset over it. Plastic guns felt quite cheap, and I envied kids who possessed metal cap guns. I had nagged my aunt to buy me one, and for the next few consecutive pujos, she always bought me a metal gun that felt heavy and real in my hands. More than bursting paper caps, I would play around with it and pretend as if I were a cop; at times, the villain. But those were fragments of my imagination.

Going to our neighbourhood club for nabami feast was a part of me, my mother and my aunt’s fun rendezvous. I liked the basanti polao and mutton they made, quite a few times. I also liked looking at Maa Durga’s idol, wearing her aura, absorbed in rituals, thin line of smoke transpiring through incense sticks, and half burned dhunuchi, accompanied by the sound of dhaak. I still feel to this day, that Maa Durga’s aura and divinity had a certain sparkle, and a glow of reigning over terror, which at present, appears bleak. Nabami and dashami meant asking my mother to buy me a packet of biryani and a bottle of coke, and eating them happily while watching something on tv.

Only after passing out of school did I start going out with my friends during pujo. We don’t see each other much throughout the year, but we make the most of it whenever we meet around this time. Durga Pujo acts as a magnetic field, bringing all of us together no matter where we are. The best thing about it, is that it never feels like we are meeting after so long. This continues even now.

I have never been to Kumortuli. It might be an outrageous confession, being a Bengali. But I have friends, and friends of friends who have visited that place a number of times, even as we speak. They would speak about their fascination, going out late at night, returning home next day after pandal hopping, and spending hours on long queue to get pictures of renowned pujo pandals. I found it ridiculous. I did not understand then that people have likes of their own. But I do now.

My memory of Durga Pujo meant accompanying my mother for thakur boron. I loved how she held two betel leaves in her hand and gently brushed them over each idol’s face before folding her hands in prayer. For Maa Durga, she did the same but moved her hands in air. There used to be a neighbourhood aunty who cooked ghugni and sold it. Every time I met her before pujo, I would ask her, Eibar pujo te ghugni hobe toh? (Are you making ghugni this pujo?). She always reassured me that she will. I carried a tiffin box and asked her to fill it up to its brim. I brought it back home, and devoured it. I don’t know if she is still there, and if she were, whether anybody enquired about her like I did.

At most places, Durga idols would get immersed on dashami. But our club followed their own rule; they immersed their idol the next day, on ekadashi. I tried negotiating with my mother that I would follow our club’s rule; I will sit to study after ekadashi, when they will finally immerse Maa Durga. Somehow I was successful in extending one day of pujo.

One would encounter a small pond first before reaching our neighbourhood club. On ekadashi, they kept the idols on one side of that pond, and built a stage on the other side for a music event. They organized a function and called the same artists every year to perform. This pond was visible from our terrace. Hence, anyone would find me on the terrace that evening, and I stayed there even though the performance took place much later. Songs like Aree Deewano Mujhe Pehchaano, Pardesiya Yeh Sach Hai Piya, Bidi Jalai Le, Dekha Jo Tujhe Yaar, and more were sung, and if my cousins accompanied me, I would dance with them. That neighbourhood aunty’s ghugni sell would increase ten fold on that day.

Another Durga Pujo is here, and I can’t help but wonder how this became an opportunity for me to reflect on my youth, when life was seemingly less complicated and I only worried about whether I would get a metal cap gun or not. Now, as I write this, far away from the city of joy, I worry that things that make me myself will, one day, be completely erased. But this feeling has managed to stay. I hope it remains the same for the long run, so that I can keep remembering that underneath its bright, vibrant tonality, lies a simplicity of Durga Pujo.