It’s back to that time again when we have the general feel of the festivities around the air, or something that we bengalees like to call ‘Pujo Pujo gondho‘ (aroma of the festivities in the air). Currently, as I sit to write this, we are celebrating Diwali, which usually marks the end of this period and the wait starts for another year. Usually Diwali is a far bigger occassion, and having stayed outside West Bengal for the last 7 years, I have first hand experienced some of the differences in which we celebrate our festivals. West Bengal has it’s own ways of surprising you with its culture, and when you see those stark differences you start to wonder whether they are for the good or the bad.
I have been lucky to witness Durga Pujo since my childhood from close proximity. And when I say witness, I am not talking of pandal hoppings. That’s a celebration, and not a way of witnessing the core of the occassion. RIght from my toddler days, I remember the rituals, and my parents being religiously involved in the ‘Pujo’. Somewhat later, in my teens, Durga Puja shifted from a public pandal right to my home. Barir Pujo, or so we called, esentially means conducting the entire Durga Puja right at your own home, and it would be shallow to term this as just an event in itself. I had written about this already in my blog in the past, the grand arrangements for the Puja right from the groceries, to the Puja items, flowers and the veggies for Bhog, and of course the sarees for the offerings. This used to start almost 3 months in advance, from July, when ‘thakurer bayna’ (idol booking) used to be done on the auspicious day of the Rath Yatra. I was a school student back in those days, and for a mind of 14, this entire process used to be overwhelming at times. There would be slots that we would have to figure out for procurring each of the items, like late evenings after dad’s office for the Doshokorma (the items purely for the Puja, like camphor etc), or an occasional Saturday for the sarees and dhotis, before the marketing madness started for the crowds. Coupled with these, were occasional visits to the idol makers to check on the idol status, and any modifications required (I still remember my idiosyncracies like asking for horns on Mahisasur’s heads, and making it a rule to be followed for subsequent years). Then of course were the bookings for priests, cooks, helpers, dhakis and the like. 2 days before the event started, everyone in the family like my parents and grandmother used to be street-busy with checking and ensuring all the things were in place and order. From tallying the count of sarees, to getting the Puja rooms cleaned, to ensuring the pradeeps / diyas and the Puja utensils are all ready to use, to ensure the fruit and groceries are delivered on time by the local vendors – it’d signal the start of the grand event well in advance!
It’s been roughly 20 years that Pujo started at our home in Bengal. And rougly 4 years since we conducted our last Puja, the whole experience of these 15 years felt like a journey in itself. And if this blog would have been there during that time, I would have ensured to document each year with the unique experiences that it brought. (I had already written something on such lines about 12 years back here) I have been closely observing Pujas being conducted in the public pandals for quite some time, and even before 2005, which was when we started having Durga Pujo at our residence. I have been told that the Pujo of the easter years were conducted only by the ultra rich (like zaminders / kings), and it used to involve the entire community. Durga Puja in itself is a very rigorous way of worshipping the feminine power, each of the 5 days right from Sasthi to Dashami have their own rules and way of worship, starting from Bodhon and Amontron (homecoming) of the Devi on the Sasthi, to the Kolabou Snan on Saptami, to the powerful Sandhi Pujo on Ashtami (when the violent form of the goddess is invoked and worshipped), to the Homa (Yagna) on Navami and finally the Visharjan on Dashami. This strong adherence to the rituals is what, in my humble opinion, makes Durga Puja a Pujo in reality. On top of this, we have strict tithis or timings for each of the rituals. And this Pujo is what I find missing, or a total lacking thereof, in most of the Pandals of today.
This brings me to the point of difference that I started this post with. As I said, I have been living outside West Bengal for the last 7 years of my life, and have seen people around me celebrate other festivities like Diwali in full swing. I have seen people from other parts of the country celebrate their own festivals in their own sweet ways. But what strikes me, is no matter how much you celebrate and enjoy, the core of these festivals is never missing. I see people from the Northern part of the country observe due fasts, dilligently follow the rituals for Diwali, have the Lakshmi Puja at home, religiously follow the processes, and then go out and enjoy. The priority is almost always, on the process and the core around which you have your celebrations. It’s never the other way around. The focus is on the real Pujo, and not on merrymaking, which comes after the former has been duly completed following the rules and rituals. I know for a fact, that this used to be the case for us Bengalees as well – long back once upon a time in history maybe! Somehow, that went away for a toss.
Take up any Durga Puja pandal around you next year, go and check how much of the focus and the planning goes in the actual process. Compare that with how normal folks celebrate other festivals like Diwali, and you’ll see why and how Bengalees have slowly, steadily and dilligently drifted away from what was theirs. Their culture is no longer what the beautiful, morally rich, spiritually enlightened it was a hundred years ago. And this reflects on almost every sphere of life. The focus of Durga Puja (note how interchangeably I have used Puja to refer to the celebrations, and Pujo to refer to the core event) is almost always hullor as we call in Bengali, meaning loud merrymaking. I have seen people eat like there’s no tomorrow (damn your potbellies!), get drunk like Lord Indra with his Apsaras, and engage in loud celebrations like DJ, box music and what not! All this, in the name of a Pujo.
And which is why, almost always you’ll find the crowd not inside the pandal wherein the Goddess resides, but cluttered and thronging like bees over Jalebi shops and food counters. Loud announcements over microphones add to the ordeal, and in my native, the traffic rules go for a toss because – hey it’s Puja time afterall, everyone is allowed to hurl abuses and drink and drive!! For some reason, I have never seen this kind of an animal-like celebration for Diwali, which in my opinion is a bigger celebration pan India. Are bengalees truly that bored all the year around that they need to unleash this side of theirs in those 4 days? Makes me wonder!
We will probably never have the kind of celebrations that we had in the good old days of yore, thanks to technologically advancing mankind! Sometimes, old is indeed gold – and if I ever go back to having Durga Pujo at my residence (God willing), I’ll have one last opportunity of savouring the old Pujo – the culture that I was so proud and happy to enjoy and witness in my teens! Bolo Dugga Mai ki Joyyyy!