Ok.. so watching the ‘mother goddess in the making’ was one thing. But i doubt i’ve ever seen anything like the festivities that hit the streets once the goddesses reached their festive destination – the pandals. Popularly referred to as ‘pandal hopping’, scores of people celebrate nights out on the street hopping from one pandal to the next to marvel at the uncountable spectacular avatars of the mother goddess. Whilst one pandal celebrates Durga as an embodiment of sunlight, another adorns her with sea shells. Amusingly, one pandal replicated the ‘Hogwarts Castle’ to cash in on the notorious Harry Potter fame! Holy Momma!!!

Almost just as religiously as the festival itself, a competition called ‘Mukut’ (Crown) is held annually’to commemorate the most creative pandal in the city of Kolkata. Faith put aside, the scale and sheer number of pandals, hours, labour put into every pandal from its creation to its presentation is unfathomable. I visited a total of 20 pandals and that is perhaps only a good 10% of the pandals spread over both – the urban and suburban texture of this joyous city. Truly Incredible!!

In true bong fashion, i too went out ‘pandal hopping’ with the family and friends on panchami night (the night preceeding the five day festival). Most of the pandals that you see here in this post covers pretty much all of Central, South and North Kolkata and were shot all on one night with the exception of those in Khidirpore.

Singhee Park

Ekdalia Evergreen

Madax Sqr

Badamtala
This was the one that won the ‘Mukut’ crown of glory this year.

66 Pally

this post runs the risk of becoming the longest post i have ever posted .. so please ’click on’ to see more  

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According to the narrative from the Devi Mahatmya of the Markandeya Purana, the form of Durga was created as a warrior goddess to fight a demon. The demon’s father Rambha, king of the demons, once fell in love with a water buffalo, and Mahish Asur (the demon Mahish) was born out of this union. He is therefore able to change between human and buffalo form at will (mahish means “buffalo”). Through intense prayers to Brahma, Mahishasur had the boon that he could not be defeated by any man or god. He unleashed a reign of terror on earth, heaven and the nether worlds.

Eventually, since only a woman could kill him, the Holy Male Trinity bestowed a dazzling beam of energy upon their own consorts, transforming them into one generic goddess, Durga.

The Great Goddess is said to be exquisitely beautiful. Her form is blindingly bright, with three lotus-like eyes, ten powerful hands, lush hair with beautiful curls, a red-golden glow from her skin and a quarter moon on her forehead. She wears a shiny oceanic blue attire emitting fierce rays. Her ornaments were carved beautifully of gold, with ocean pearls and precious stones embedded in it. Her face was sculpted by Shiva, torso by Indra, breasts by Chandra (the moon), teeth by Brahma, bottom by the Earth, thighs and knees by Varuna (water), and her three eyes by Agni (fire). Each god also gave her their own most powerful weapons, Rudra’s trident, Vishnu’s discus, Indra’s thunderbolt, Brahma’s kamandal, Kuber’s gada, etc. Himalayas gifted her a fierce whitish golden lion. On the end of the 8th and beginning of the 9th day of waxing moon, Chanda and Munda came to fight the goddess. She turned blue with anger and goddess Chamunda leaped out of her third eye. Her form was the most powerful one with 3 red eyes, blood-filled tongue and dark skin; who finally killed the twin demons with her sword. This form of the divine goddess is worshipped during the sandhikshan of Durga Puja festival, as sandhi/chandi puja. Finally on the tenth day of waxing moon, goddess Durga killed Mahishasura with her trident.

Goddess Durga is said to be the mother of Ganesha, Kartikeya as well of Saraswati and Lakshmi.

- sourced from wikipedia

Durga Puja is perhaps best described as the ‘Big Momma of Festivals’ for Hindus in West Bengal, East Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, UP and Bengali Hindus all over the world. For the uninitiated (which to some extent, includes myself), it is a five day festival celebrated from the sixth to tenth day of the waxing moon in the month of ‘Ashwin’, which is the sixth month in the Bengali calendar. (wikipedia rocks!!)

Having only heard about the magnificient ‘puja’ as i grew up in diasaporic Dubai, i’ve always wanted to find out for myself what the fuss was really all about – would i go hohum? or would i go holymomma!!?

Flew into Kolkata on Friday, irritably hungover from an unpleasent night of festivities and the first thing i did was take a ride down to ‘Kumortuli’. Now, this place is just fascinating !!! It is a traditionally potters’ quarter in northern Kolkata that supplies clay idols of Hindu gods and goddesses. Artisans bring soil from brothel house as a ritual and then begin the intricate job of crafting the mother goddess. (will try and find out exactly what the story behind this is in a later post) I know that yáll aren’t very fond of reading but it’s really too fascinating to stop The popular writer Sunil Gangopadhyay has narrated the traditional magic of this place from his child-hood days (the forties of the last century):

“In those days, instead of buying the idols from the market at Kumortuli, families invited the kumor or artisan home to stay as a house guest weeks before the Puja, during which time he sculpted the idol. The idol at our Puja was known for its magnificent size. It used to be over 10 feet tall. Every morning as the kumor started his work, we children gathered around him and gaped in awe as he gradually turned a fistful of straw and a huge mass of clay into a perfectly formed, larger-than-life figure. And then came the most intriguing part — the painting of the third eye of the goddess. The artisan would sit in meditation sometimes for hours and then suddenly in one swift stroke of his paint brush, it would be done.”