Even among the Bengalis there are exceptions!

Who would have expected that even among the Bengalis there are those that do not like all the sounds and flavours of this season – of course the dhaak and gaan of Durga puja! Have you heard this old Bengali joke?

‘When does the beat of the dhaak sound the sweetest?’

‘When it stops playing.’

That’s how the article in The Telegraph starts. It talks about this one section of people in Kolkata that are tired of all the noise, the traffic jams, the socializing and the shopping – and therefore prefer to move out into the country to have a quieter Puja.

No, it is not that they don’t want the Puja, they want it very much but minus all the fuss.

And again, there are those that leave Kolkata to go on pilgrimages elsewhere during the auspicious Navratri season – mainly to Vrindavan. And there are those that flee the country altogether – not a nice time to leave India.

I for one would simply love to visit Kolkata during the Puja to experience the soul of Kolkata, the feminine mysticism that is all-pervading during the ten days that is all masti! It would be great to make noise and dance and eat sweets (I have a major sweet tooth!) and just breathe in the festivity.

Some History about the Durga Pooja celebrations in Kolkata:

The mass exodus goes back to the Seventies, when the spirit of Durga Puja started souring with unfair — and often menacing — demands for chanda (donations). “Organising the festival went into the hands of the local toughs and the city mafia. The devotee was important only in passing,” remembers Calcutta boy Suhel Seth, head of ad agency Equus.

Subhas Chandra Bose was the president of the organising committee in 1938-39. “We have gone in for corporate sponsorship, but are also maintaining our age-old traditions such as Sindoor Khela on Dashami,” says Goutam Neogy, honorary general secretary of the Puja committee.

Some believe the landmark year for the Pujas was 1982. “That’s the year Asian Paints started giving away the Sharad Samman awards. Durga Puja has never been the same after that,” says Abhijit Bhattacharya, archivist at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, who is part of a team documenting the changing nature of Durga Puja.

Those who believe that the Pujas are getting more and more commercialised are not quite enamoured of the trend of theme Pujas either.