Durga Puja is when art meets devotion. When creativity meets culture. When tradition meets fashion. When crowds mean celebration. Every autumn, during the nine evenings known as Navaratri, the whole of east India lights up with festivities, and this being India, east also makes its presence felt in the north, south, and west. There are installations called pandals all over the country, hosting not only Goddess Durga and her four children but also depicting the moods of the moment. One pandal in New Delhi looks like the new Parliament house; a pandal in Bhopal has been designed after the upcoming Ram temple in Ayodhya; also in Bhopal, one pandal is celebrating the Chandrayaan; at a pandal in Guwahati, the aarti is happening exactly how it happens by the Ganga in Varanasi.
Then there is Kolkata, where the year is split between the time one waits for Durga Puja and when one celebrates Durga Puja. The actual worship is limited only to five days, but the celebration now extends to all the nine nights, especially after the festival earned a place last year in UNESCO’s heritage list. There is so much to see — Durga Puja is the biggest outdoor art installation in the world — that even those many nights are not enough. Pandals , apart from being works of art, are also social levellers: it doesn’t matter who you are, at a puja you are part of the crowd — the crowd that’s synonymous with celebration.
Text by: Bishwanath Ghosh
Bedecked pandal: A priest performs Navaratri aarti at the American Colony Durga puja mandap in Guwahati.
Mundane matters:Even with festivities in full swing, Bhubaneswar municipality conducts fogging outside a pandal thronged by worshippers, as part of its fight against rising dengue cases.
First dekko: The first look of Goddess Durga Idol at the Bengal Club Pandal in Mumbai.
One step ahead: A pandal in Bhopal modeled on Ayodhya’s upcoming Ram temple.
Sacred ritual: A priest applies Shidur (as pronounced in Bengali) during aarti at a pandal on the sixth day of Durga Puja in C.R. Park, New Delhi on Friday
To the mountains: A pandal themed on the Kedarnath Dham in Bhopal.
Short break: A scene from the New Town Sharbojonin in east Kolkata, just before Durga Puja celebrations reach a peak.
Prayer time: Devotees gathered at the Kalibari Temple pandal in Ahmedabad on Friday.
Intricate craft: A Durga idol at the Raj Danga Nobo Uday Sangha in South Kolkata.
Published - October 22, 2023 10:50 am IST
