A peek into the ‘world’s greatest public art installation’

Earlier this week, I was mildly miffed with my tailor. A minor wardrobe issue, but he said he could not help me because he was not in the shop, but going around Kolkata’s pujo pandals. Pandals... how does one explain the concept? Some years ago, when we were pitching Durga Puja to an European audience, we used the term ‘marquee’, which seems rather inadequate. A giant temporary installation, usually a colourful cloth façade on a framework of bamboo poles, where Durga and her children are revered in the autumn every year. An adequate description? Far from it.

Coming back to my tailor, Anees was almost apologetic that he had taken time off. “I shall be back before midnight, sir, and I’ll get it done before you go out tomorrow morning. You will have your new kurta before Onjoli.” He knows that norms and tradition decree that one must wear new clothes at the prayers on ashtami, the 8th day of the fortnight. Anees is not a Hindu and is not even certain he is a Bengali, because his grandfather migrated to Kolkata from the northern province of Uttar Pradesh. But he is part of the millions (yes, millions!) who throng the streets during Puja, wondering at the lights and the pandals and the grandeur of the fanfare. And he will go the extra mile to ensure that our Puja goes off well. This, to me, is the essence of Durga Puja in the 21st century. It is a celebration of community and creativity, a fortnight of rejoicing. No wonder then Unesco recently included Kolkata’s famed Durga Puja in its Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity List.

Being inherently argumentative by nature, Bengalis naturally disagree on the origin of the tradition. The landed gentry of Kolkata attribute it to Raja Nabakrishna Deb of the Sovabajar Rajbari. By some accounts, this Puja, held in 1757, was also a celebration of East India Company defeating Siraj ud-Daulah, the then Nawab of Bengal, at the Battle of Plassey. I would look further, and not just for historical veracity. An exclusive Puja organised by a landlord, with little participation of the masses, a celebration of an Indian defeat, a kowtowing to colonisers — these are disturbing ideas not only in hindsight but because these ideas are far removed from the social, cultural and even commercial celebration of unity that Durga Puja has come to be known for.

There is also a contention that the zamindars of Dinajpur and Malda initiated the first Durga Puja in Bengal in the 16th century. Other claims abound. Raja Kangshanarayan of Taherpur in 1500, or Bhabananda Mazumdar of Krishnanagar in 1606, or Lakshmikanto Majumdar (founder of the Sabarno Rouchowdhury family) in 1610 … who organised the first Sharadiya Durga Puja in Bengal. Noted academic and historian, Sukanta Chaudhuri, provides an interesting insight when he says, “The most amazing act of worship was performed by the East India Company itself: in 1765, it offered a thanksgiving Puja, no doubt as a politic act to appease its Hindu subjects, on obtaining the Diwani of Bengal.” These are of course prime topics for debate and adda, that celebration of conversation which defines Bengali society.

wknd@khaleejtimes.com