The azure sky of the slow evening of the ‘Gujjuland’
is filled with the festive spirit. Today as I sit down with a cup of coffee and
my laptop, I can hear the sound of drum beats as people celebrate. The
generally silent and disciplined neighborhood around my apartment is in a
festive frenzy, children screaming in joy, prayer bells ringing and the scent
of the incense all around .There are celebrations overnight. The drum beats
seems like Dhak to my ears and dawns
a sudden realization in me, Durga Puja is right in the corner.
Just like always, whenever I am away from
Home, I impose a total media ban on anything related to the Pujo, taking a leaf out of our Indian
Government’s Ostrichian principle that if I bury my head in the ground and restrict
the flow of information about anything, then it ceases to exist anymore.
That’s the reason I refuse to do online Protima Dorshon , which majorly comprise
of innumerable pictures of Durga Puja on my Facebook and Instagram “friends”
walls followed by several other websites. I do NOT appreciate being wished “Subho
Mahalaya” and stay away from Pujo
by blotting them out, I try to convince myself that Pujo does not exist and this illusion helps me to get over these
few days. After all, as Durkheim demonstrated in Suicide, you feel miserable
when everyone else is having fun and you are not.
Mahalaya just passed us by. No, I did not try to rake up an Mp3 of Birendra Krishna Bhodro’s endearing
recitation of Mahisasura Mardini. As
a matter of fact, the only time I like to hear Mahisasura Mardini is during the dawn of Mahalaya, half-asleep, at home in Kolkata, awash with the
beautifully serene tunes of Pankaj
Mallick, my own heart beating in anticipation of Pujo to come.
Listening to it at any other time is severely
unsatisfying—that’s the exact reason why I hate it when they play it during any
other day day—it’s like hearing the ting-a-ling of the ice-cream vendor when
you know that there is no ice-cream in his cart.
Admirable emotions and I agree with Mahishashur Mardini losing much of its
endearing qualities when heard out of its regular space-time context. Yes, I
would like to shut out Pujo as much
as possible too – but when the Bengali in me starts reminding that it’s another
Pujo that I will be staying away from
home, I just couldn’t stop. So for today, just today, I am letting myself go –
releasing some of the pent-up sentiments – all the sappy, seven colors of the
rainbow memories.
Time to let off a silent and envious sigh thinking
of how my city might now be throbbing with exuberance, the electric (quite
literarily) atmosphere and most of all, the fun everyone is having back home
during Durga Pujo, while I am several
thousands of miles away – waiting for some kind of tele-transportation to
happen just like a sci-fi movie. It’s now the time to prepare myself and not to
be sad as my inbox starts getting filled with pictures of pandals and protima followed
by Shubo Bijoya wishes in a few days.
Quite like many others, at different stages
of my life Durga Pujo has meant
slightly different than the previous one. As a kid, it was mostly the amusement
of the creation of Maa Durga by the
other Devtas in the heaven to combat
the evil Asura. It was the time for pandal hopping, protima dorshon and to some extent, the kitschy animated lightning
of the pandals and the area surrounding
them. It was the time of nagging my elders to take me to the local fair for
another round of merry-go-round, phuchka and
ice cream. And it was the time for getting new clothes which was somehow forced
on me; later, I would convince most of my relatives to give me cash instead of
clothes that I used to buy new books! My pishi-
my paternal aunt, somehow knew about my love for books, because she will always
be the first one in my family to gift me Anondomela
Puja Barshiki.
The adolescent years spent more with
friends, new love and “eye-spice” mostly the south Kolkata are of Maddox
Square, Ekdalia Evergreen and such. However, there were also some forays to the
famous North Kolkata gastronomic wonders and a very different kind of erm… Pujo (if you can catch the drift), or a
simple adda.
But throughout my years spent in Kolkata
during the Pujo, certain things always remained the same. It started with
listening to Mahishashur Mardini on radio,
the smell of Chatim, the sounds of dhaak from the very early morning of Panchami and my dad who not being much adventurous like us on
Puja Spirit taking us to see some of the famous Pujo Mandap by his car on a Panchami
evening to avoid the rush, the smell of my mother after the morning Sasthi Pujo with her red big sindoor bindi serving us the prasad , late evening gossips with friends on Saptami , the dhunchi-naanch
during the evening aarti at my mamabarir’r pujo. Ashtami was the day
of grandeur and on Nabami; baba will take his car to the Haji Saheb’s meat shop at Park Circus
and get the best of mutton for home. The smell of the mutton curry and pulao made by maa later of the day still lingers in my taste buds. The feelings
of all these funs will take a temporary halt starts dawdling in my mind. The
sadness of Dashami, somewhat
alleviated with the abundance of sweets in our house on that evening.
In all the years I have been outside
Kolkata, I have never attended that staple of the probashi bangalee Durga Pujo which gets its actual momentum
specially on the weekends. The reason I have not is simply because if anything,
Pujo means being at home, in the
company of the people you know and whom you care for - I suppose the sense of
belonging a cat gets when it curls up on its favorite rug! And for me the Probashi Durga Pujo would not be that. I
wouldn’t know anyone there, would just go, pay, see the Durga idol, overhear
some puerile conversation about the recent Sabyasachi’s Jamdani sari and Dolly’s special tea, eat and leave. That’s not
Durga Pujo, that’s a circus and a free dinner!
Just like a Diet Coke, pretty asinine and burlesque!
And so I am prepared to face another Pujo with brave heart…with me denying
its existence…cheating once in a while by reminiscing about times gone by ,mumbling
to myself how far away I am from home and promising maa and myself once more that I will be in Kolkata next year.
