Belated Durga Puja Part 2

A friend was kind enough to invite me and another American to his community in Salt Lake to see the last day of Durga Puja, Doishumi, from a more local perspective. It was incredible. Dressed in sari, my friend and I arrived around 5pm, hung around, and then watched as drumming and dancing started and we were pulled into the crowd to dance and get our faces painted with the red shindur. After three or four hours of the drumming and dancing, we watched as the community said good-bye to their Durga and loaded it up to go to the immersion ceremony. Another friend drove us to the river, and we watched as each community carried their idol to the river, turned it around (can't remember how many times) and then immersed it into the sacred Ganga River, saying good-bye until next year.

Puja Part 1

A friend of mine and I finally got out to see some of the pandals, which house the idols of the Goddess, Durga, during the largest Hindu celebration in West Bengal. Imagine Christmas light contests in various neighborhoods and then make it more competitive. Communities spend thousands, sometimes millions of dollars constructing the "house" and its surrounding decorations, then even more for the idol of the Goddess. We went to Alipur and New Alipur in southeastern Kolkata to see some of the idols. These are just three photos that give you a taste of what we saw and some of the diversity amongst the idols and pandals. Each pandal has a different theme. The themes we saw included astrological signs, a pandal made completely of soda bottles, and one based on a village area. Tonight another friend is taking us to see some of the pandals after dark. Should be exciting! Happy Puja!

Kumarthulli

One Saturday I went to Kumarthulli, where the locals do master craftsmanship for the religious idols for the various Hindu and other celebrations . These are some of the photos of these master artisans who work in the smallest little shops. This was a couple of weeks before Durga Puja, the biggest Hindu celebration in West Bengal. Durga Purja lasts for ten days, with various communities setting up pandals, which are structures that house the goddess. Durga is very big in Kolkata and has ten arms. She is known as the universal mother. Kumarthulli is in one of the oldest sections of Northern Kolkata. Very, very cool to see and made me even more excited for Puja time, when all the statues are fully decorated and placed throughout the city at the different community structures.