Durga Puja-Part 2

Childhood memories are always one to cherish and refresh them at a later date. Its all about the child like innocence, no worries in the mind, no malice or hatred towards anyone. Each Year during the same time, my mind travels back to my childhood days spent in the City of Joy. Around the  same time each year, the City of Kolkata breaks into a riot of colours and artful celebrations coinciding with Durga Puja.

We used to stay in the heart of the city which is South Kolkata, popularly known as Gariahat Junction. Now Gariahat is always the springspot of all action that happens in the city. All the Puja Pandals are centred in and around Gariahat, popular ones being Ekdalia, Teenkona Park, Deshopriyo Park, Dover Lane. Come Puja time and lakhs of people descend on the roads to have a compulsory tour of the various pandals in the city. Traffic comes to a grinding halt and the best possible way to get a circuit tour of the Puja Pandals would be on foot.

I would of course be excited to see the milling crowd, at times overwhelmed by the sheer size of people turning out each year. This aspect has never really changed nor will it change in the future. The Ekdalia Pujo Pandal was closest to our house and come Pujo time, my mother would always want to go to the Pujo Pandal and offer Anjali to Maa Durga.

Now I will describe the scene of the fun and revelry right from the moment we stepped out of our house. Myself and my sister in tow we would take the flight of steps that would take us down to the road below. Outside the gate would be a small Bengali Sweets shop, very nondescript, and not a famous shop. My mother would step and pick up a choice of her sweets to be offered for worship to Maa Durga. Clasping my mothers hands myself and my sister would walk past the pedestrian shops on the roadside. Seeing us they would greet us with utmost reverence. I would always be enamored by the Roll shop, the smell of rolls being cooked, the mustard sauces, the eggs getting added, the niceties of finely chopped onions all of it would combined set my tongue tingling. Then there would be this small book shop right at the turning of the Gariahat-Ekdalia junction. He would have all the Amar Chitra Katha comics. Here is where I picked up my first comic and ACK Title it was Ganga.

Taking a turn right we would approach the final stretch, with the glamorized and intricately carved Pandal right in front of us. There would be stall on either side of the Pandal, somewhere youngsters would be on top of a float doling out latest Bengali/Hindi pep numbers. They would look like rock stars. As we approach the Pandal, there would be that air of unexplainable aura, only to be experienced. Then we would be in the moment that all of us had been waiting for. We would be in direct communion with the Divine Mother herself. Such Beautiful Eyes to behold. The next few minutes would be spent transfixed on the idol, mesmerized by Her beauty. I always had the impression that the Idol at Ekdalia was the most beautiful across the city.

Anyways the Purohit would be there chanting the Anjali hymns and we with flowers in our hands would offer it at Mothers Holy feet. Of course the sweetmeats would come back home as proshaad, but more than anything else we would be left with lingering memories of the festivities.