The Goddess Chronicles (Durga Puja Journal - IV)

Today is Nabami the penultimate day of Durga Puja. The Statesman in its Sunday supplement has an article about the profusion of themes and the trinketisation of Durga puja. The writer has commented about the lack of origins and centres.

Themed pujas are everywhere. While some of them still have something to say or a level of awareness to create some are outright meaningless. A pandal is south Calcutta has invoked the arts, crafts and way of life of the Gond tribals of Madhya Pradesh by using their crafts and artefacts in pandal design and having live performances of their dances. The goddess here is also primitive in her appearance. One puja community has used Himachal Pradesh as a theme (last year it was Rajasthan) by creating mountains, streams and suchlike. It seems caves and dark passages are very popular this time. Now the outright meaningless is the one where Durga is housed in a railway compartment pandal while another has used the story of Alibaba and Forty Thieves as a theme.

Television is deep into the puja atmosphere and have planned a variety of programmes to keep the homebound viewers hooked. Among the highlights yesterday was the interview of Mahisasur taken by a talk-show host that was charged with humour. And there are competitions galore from Asian Paints Sarad Samman given to the best puja of the city to Hutch’s Sholo Anna Bangaliana (Hundred Percent Bengali-ness) given to the quintessentially `Bengali’ puja. In between are the best devotees and best couple and so on.

The Nabami night is a night of collective sadness and also the night to hold on, to prolong it and wish it has no end. For from tomorrow begin the rituals of Durga’s departure. Women playing with sindoor with the godess and each other, putting that sandesh in her mouth and bidding her goodbye, sending her off for the bisharjan. I have been homebound for most of today for my sadness goes beyond the departure of Durga for her Himalayan abode. We had splurged on Ashtami night and am suffused in guilt and sadness. And I had a fight with Shalini who is behaving strangely from the time I have been reporting about the Goddess.

Throughout the day I have heard the Sanskrit slokas from the pandals mix with music of every kind on loudspeakers, watched TV and yearned for the world outside. But I have remained indoors. The whisky I had at an Egyptian themed watering hole last night has misbehaved with my body. I have a residue of a hangover. This place, called Heka (which I believe means magic in Egyptian) tucked under a huge football stadium, had the usual call-centre, corpo, semi-corpo crowd and lots of Bollywood music from a slim DJ with an interesting face. She was my Durga for ashtami night, the DJ, as hearing the music she presented, looking at her and drinking the fermented malt I went into a frisson of a reverie.

But the hotel where this pub is situated was trying too hard to woo the Durga Puja crowd and the lobby was crowded with people waiting for the special buffets and goddess-knows-what was on offer.

Yes, like most Bengalis we had a sumptuous non-vegetarian lunch on the occasion of Nabami. The mutton-sellers all over Bengal made brisk business today as thousands of sheep and goat and ram transformed into mouth-watering kochi pathar jhol, or kosha mangsho and more on Bengali dining tables. And today is also the occasion for ritual sacrifice of goats and buffaloes as an offering to the deity. I haven’t had the opportunity to taste buffalo meat yet but am told it’s the poor man’s beef.

The Ramkrishna mission among other organisers perfoms the kumari puja during Durga puja where a young girl is worshipped as a goddess. The scriptures say that kumari is the most powerful form of shakti.

In the afternoon today a great curtain of clouds darkened the skies and there were showers in the city. But the crowds are undaunted at least in the city. The situation created by the floods in Howrah district are however bad. The Chief Minister was there today observing, pledging and advising. The floods have done a lot of damage to crops and Durga in these villages, this time, is no great star. While the faces of the flood-affected farmers made me sad, the spirit of the inmates of a mental asylum visiting pandals (a programme organised by a merchant’s association in North Bengal) brought happy tears to my eyes.

(©Copyright reserved by author. Published work.)
(Photographs are from www.calstreet.com, www.wikipedia.org and www.holidayspot.com. Check out www.calstreet.com for a good collection of Durga Puja photos from this year)

A bit of History from Wikipedia:

A considerable literature exists around Durga in the Bengali language and its early forms, including Durgotsavnirnaya (11th century), Durgabhaktitarangini by Vidyapati (14th century), etc. Durga Puja was popular in Bengal in the medieval period, and records exist of it being held in the courts of Rajshahi (16th century) and Nadia (18th century). It was during the 18th century, however, that the worship of Durga became popular among the landed elite of Bengal, Zamindars. Prominent Pujas were conducted by the landed zamindars and jagirdars, enriched by British rule, including Raja Nabakrishna Deb, of Shobhabajar, who initiated an elaborate Puja at his residence. Many of these old pujas exist to this day. Today, the culture of Durga Puja has shifted from the princely houses to Sarbojanin (literally, "involving all") forms.

Durga puja mood starts off with the Mahishasuramardini' – a radio programme that has been popular with the community since the 1950s. While earlier it used to be conducted live, later a recorded version began to be broadcast. Bengalis traditionally wake up at 4 in the morning on Mahalaya day to listen to the enchanting voice of of the late Birendra Kishore Bhadra and the late Pankaj Kumar Mullick on All India Radio. as they recite hymns from the scriptures 'Devi Mahatmyam

During the week of Durga Puja, in the entire state of West Bengal as well as in large enclaves of Bengalis everywhere, life comes to a complete standstill. In play grounds, traffic circles, ponds -- wherever space may be available -- elaborates structures called pandals 'are set up, many with nearly a year's worth of planning behind them. The word pandal means a temporary structure, made of bamboo and cloth, which is used as a temporary temple for the purpose of the puja. While some of the pandals are simple structures, others are often elaborate works of art with themes that rely heavily on history, current affairs and sometimes pure imagination.'

Somewhere inside these complex edifices is a stage on which Durga reigns, standing on her lion mount, wielding ten weapons in her ten hands. This is the religious center of the festivities, and the crowds gather to offer flower worship or pushpanjali on the mornings, of the sixth to ninth days of the waxing moon fortnight known as evi Pakshya (lit. Devi = goddess; Pakshya = period; Devi Pakshya meaning the period of the goddess). Ritual drummers – dhaakis, carrying large leather-strung dhaakis –– show off their skills during ritual dance worships called aarati. On the tenth day, Durga the mother returns to her husband, Shiva, ritualised through her immersion into the waters –– Bishorjon also known as Bhaashan and Niranjan

Today's Puja, however, goes far beyond religion. In fact, visiting the pandals recent years, one can only say that Durgapuja the largest outdoor art festival on earth. In the 1990s, a preponderance of architectural models came up on the pandal exteriors, but today the art motif extends to elaborate interiors, executed by trained artists, with consistent stylistic elements, carefully executed and bearing the name of the artist.

The sculpture of the idol itself has evolved. The worship always depicts Durga with her four children, and occasionally two attendant deities and some banana-tree figures. In the olden days, all five idols would be depicted in a single frame, traditionally called pata. Since the 1980s however, the trend is to depict each idol separately.

At the end of six days, the idol is taken for immersion in a procession amid loud chants of 'Durga mai-ki jai' (glory be to Mother Durga') and 'aashchhe bochhor abar hobe' ('it will happen again next year') and drumbeats to the river or other water body, and it is cast in the waters symbolic of the departure of the deity to her home with her husband in the Himalayas. After this, in a tradition called Vijaya Dashami, families visit each other and sweetmeats are offered to visitors (Dashami is literally "tenth day" and Vijay is "victory").

Durga Puja is also a festivity of Good (Ma Durga) winning over the evil (Maheshasoora the demon). It is a worship of power of Good which always wins over the bad.