With the pre-planned shutdown in my office, I had planned to visit my in Laws at Kolkata to witness the famous Durga Pooja. Being bengali yet out of Kolkata for most of her life, my wife has attended Durga Puja just once till now, so she was as excited as I was. Unlike all other places of India where Navratri is celebrated with Dandiya and all Puja rituals, the Bengali Durga Puja starts becoming grand and magnificent with the sixth day of Navratri thats Shashthi.
We reached Kolkata in the morning at 10. Phailin was about to start and the Kolkata welcomed us with dark clouds and soothing wind. My father in law and his friend welcomed us at airport, and as we were marching towards the parking space, my father in law told me proudly that your sasurbadi is the City of Joy. With clouds hanging on our heads and drops of water surprising us every now and then, my mother in law was little bit worried whether we could see the Durga Puja celebrations or not. As we started for the tour, rain started pouring moderately. The group of 8 of us was enthusiastic and optimist about the darshan. I was nervous for my DSLR which I have pre-purchased just for this occasion. It was like preparing blade of your sword for the Peace Summit. Anyways, our first destination was Shree Bhoomi Pandal. The pandal was huge and the stage is awesomely decorated. The murti of Durga Ma was so beautiful, the face was so elegant, the sharp eyelines, the overworked ornaments, the weaponeries (ayudh) were so brilliantly created. That scene was really breathtaking. The artist have tried their best to portray cruel and cunning yet defeating Asura and the akral-vikral lion. Whenever I have seen Durga Puja photos online or on TV, I have never noticed the other degnetories who shared the stage with Durga Ma. On the left side of Durga Ma was Laxmi Ma, followed by Ganapati.(Yes! Aapla Ganapati Bappa) On the right side was Saraswati Ma accompanied by Lord Kartikey. After the first pandal and numerous clicks, we went to Salt Lake Area and visited few more pandals. The efforts were taking not only on Durga Ma statues but also innovative ideas were implemented by different Groups to make their pandal unique, whether it be completely made of Bamboos or complete hut structure or huge fortress replicas.
Not only this but each pandal was decorated with huge zumbers each of them must have costed a huge sum but increased the deocrum of the pandals manyfolds.
What DurgaPuja is to bengali is what Diwali is for the rest of us. All the city is overwhelmed with such a joy, enthusiasm. All the roads are filled with lighting and each passing lane have Durga Puja pandal. The adjective Royal is a perfect match for Bengali culture. The way beauties were walking around all corners of streets, guys wearing ethnic kurtas even in the crowded and muddy atmosphere gives you sense that they are all into fashion and takes good care of their looks. My wife's stubborn stand that she will wear Saree even if there will be tiring journey and she will have to sacrifice the comfort of normal clothes gave conclusive stamp on my opinion. Everywhere I could see enthusiastic, happy faces roaming, bengali women wearing that typical big bindi proudly doing their chitter-chatter. I have fairly seen the Ganapati festival in major maharashtra cities like Pune...err I mean only pune. The one difference what I found between marathi and bengali culture, I would like to explain in more details. In the Ganapati Mandap, we could see all the crowd folding their hands and praying to their favourite god, while in Durga Puja mandap, I could see the crowds either watching the beauty of the stage and of the Durga Ma or capturing it in camera. Marathi people are very bhavik while bengali are very rajas. History has the evidences of my claim. In maharashtra we had so many saints who praised gods with their abhang, kavya. Similarly Bengal has the history of so many art lovers like Tagore. Its just the way we praise our almighty, we seek it through our prayers and they do it by praising the almighty for the beauty she had created in the world. Anyways, before I stop making sense I should stop this analysis.
During the two day Puja tour, I found one more important vein of the city, the traffic police. As seen in the movie Kahani, the traffic police with completely white uniform were standing at each square, 2-3 police per square. I was amazed to see the abundance of traffic police and I thought that this must be extra police force added just for Durga Puja but that was not the case, here traffic police handle traffic much efficiently than Signals. I found the same count of them on streets later after Durga Puja.
This city has such a heritaged history like Mumbai. Kolkata was the place from where East India Company started their insertion into India. There are so many beautiful and ancient buildings from British Era still standing firmly on their grounds, just like mumbai. One of the best thing I found in Kolkata was the journey in Tram. It is the only place in India where Tram runs and not just for the sake of show but Tram network was spread all across the main city. Mumbai also had a tram but in the midst of modernization, it got lost. The tram journey was such a joyful ride. Imagine bicycles, the hand-riksha(again a speciality of Kolkata), cars, motorcycles rides beside you and you watch them from the tram who modestly goes her the way. This is the good thing about Kolkata, people here have maintained the essence of old times, whether it is College street(analogous to ABC in Pune) or Park Street. Wondering though Kolkata gave me the feeling that how beautiful were the old times, just like shown in the movie Midnight in Paris. Sitting on the wooden bench on footpath and eating singada & amrati (samosa and Emarati), I realized that I am so lost in all MacD, KFC culture. After we eat total 4 plates of Samosa and lots of Emarati, our bill was just Rs.38. And I pay minimum Rs.80 for that kind of food in bangalore. The cost of living in kolkata is really low.
The park street market is a feast for ladies. They can get lost in the gigantic yet congested new market. The biggest advantage to this city is it is Ganga. The tremendous shores of Ganga, when I watched from Belur math, I slightly understood the greatness of the river.
The metro rail in Kolkata is also one of the awesome thing, I feel. Its the only metro infrastructure in India which is totally underground. I also came to know that there is a planning for bring underground metro from below the Ganga. Metro is like the veins/arteries of Kolkata. Look, the city offers you so many varied commute options, from metro, local train, local buses to hand-driven rikshaws, yellow taxies.
With all boons, there are some bad things about Kolkata. The public infrastructure is totally collapsed. With overwhelming population flooding at its gates from Bangladesh, this is what happens. The commute is very difficult. Its not that they dont have proper city-buses but the facilities provided are very less as compared to the ones who are supposed to make use of it. Auto, taxi drivers take advantage of our helplessness and loot your money. Many times you feel frustrated after looking at the dumps of garbage all over the places. At one corner in one of the market area, I saw water pipe open and there was such a waste of water. Being the son of Vidarbh Soil, I felt so angry as no one was caring to put it off. The fish markets and vegetable markets make the areas very shaggy. Nonetheless, this is the situation of all over-crowded cities in India.
Dakshineshwar temple, Belur math, Victoria Memorial...the list is never-ending for tourism. Coming to the city of joy definately gave me so many good memories. It is land who have given us national heroes like Vivekanand, SubhashChandra Bose, Ravindranath Tagore, Jagdish Chandra Bose and many more. On the day of departure, my mother in law gave me the Roshagulla, as I gulped it, its sweetness reminded me of all the good things, good lovely and sweet people and their hospitality. When my plane took off from the runaway I watched the city of joy disappearing in the clouds busy in her day to day chores. She had served well one more guest.
