A FESTIVAL UNIQUELY ITS OWN

Calcutta Telegraph
Sept 21 2009
India

To the many communities in the city, the Durga Puja means different
things, or may not mean anything at all. Some Calcuttans long to join,
others to flee it

My friend Daniel has memories strangely similar to mine of Durga Puja
in school — of not doing much. While Daniel would spend time with his
family, catching a movie or making a short trip, I remember mostly
staying at home too and basically doing anything I would have done
during the summer or winter vacations. One of the major grievances of
my mother used to be the fact that we could not visit our relatives
in Bombay. Durga Puja vacations in Calcutta invariably clashed with
the mid-term examinations of my cousins, for whom the holidays would
not begin till after Diwali.

For Marie, a second generation Armenian in Calcutta, Durga Puja
is essentially a time relax, to catch up with friends, and stay at
home. No one really minds a short period off from work. "Christmas is
our festival," she says; this one’s just a nice break, one that comes
without the baggage of having to entertain a host of relatives and
acquaintances within a closely-knit community. She has sampled her
share of pandals, about "once or twice", some couple of decades ago,
she recalls. It is the crowd and the noise that keep her off, along
with the fact that she does not feel even a part of the enthusiasm
that she sees others being carried away by.

It is a normal working day for some others. A young businessmen I met
at the Calcutta Parsi Club reasoned it was profitable for him to keep
his shop open, especially so during the Pujas, when the rest of the
market is shut. He gets the entire share of any little activity that
takes place in the market, since he is the only one open. Work is light
and in the evenings, he goes around the city with friends or family.

An elderly member of the club, an ardent pandal-hopper in his younger
days, says he wouldn’t dare step out now because of the crowd that has
increased manifold since his youth. "You could take your car right up
to a pandal, look around and drive off," he states with incredulity at
the situation now. A fellow member sitting beside him, when asked what
he does during the Pujas, replied, "What I do everyday" — that is,
spend time at the club. Pandal-hopping is on the cards, but never
when the crowds are high. "We get back by 9 at the latest." He used
to be fascinated at how his friends could tell the difference in
the features of the goddess’s face — the way the eyes were painted
differently — while the main attractions for him were the pandals,
their majesty, the intricacies in their architecture, and so on.

The lights — an enthusiasm I inherited from my father — were the
main incentive for us to go out to the pandals in the evenings. After
he shut shop early, we would set off, but not before he had said his
namaz at sundown, just in time to see the lights come aglow. Like the
gentlemen in the Parsi Club, my father would make it a point to return
home as early as possible too. On an evening some six years back,
we got caught in bad traffic, after which my father vowed never to
stay back that late again.

No one I spoke to remembers being particularly inconvenienced by the
disruption in city life. But what was missing from these accounts was
the single-mindedness in the pursuit of the festivities that everyone
around them seemed to have. Having lived in Calcutta all my life,
I still do not understand it. I know very little about what exactly
happens to the lives of all the people engrossed in celebrating the
festival, and how their lives are totally transformed during those
few days. I know only of what is very difficult not to notice —
the crowds, the pandals, the lights and the sales. Why I do not see
anything beyond is perhaps because I never really "went the extra
mile" like Daniel told me he did. He remembers badgering people
with questions in order to know of the myths and stories behind the
events. He spends the Pujas with a friend’s family in Chandernagore,
participating in their ceremonies at home. He is skipping a family
trip to Shankarpur this year just to remain in and around the city. He
wouldn’t dream of staying away.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress