Durga Puja provides thousands of jobs for months

Durga Puja is a four day affair for Bengalis by and large but it also provides thousands of jobs to thousands of people throughout the year. The number of pujas is on the increase and, along with the festivities is the added attraction of decoration of the pandal and its surroundings – the only objective is to attract more and more footsteps to the venue and hope to land one of the prizes on offer by the sponsors.
The annual festivities end on Bijoya Dasami. This is applicable for most Bengalis, but not for the organizers who put their heads together to decide on the theme for the next year. They have before them various designs that have already been used up and have to select a new theme.

The committee will sit for hours in front of the laptops and exhaust cups of tea and packets of cigarettes to decide on a theme that would be unique. Such meetings would be closed door meetings because everyone wants to lay the cards close to the chest. Rivals must never get any clue to what is brewing!!
Once the decision is taken, the activities begin. PERT and CPM charts would be drawn up and nets thrown far and wide to rope in suitable men and women who would begin the work from scratch. It means, they would have to go in search of the ingredients that would finally be assembled in order to create the pandal where Goddess Durga and her family would reside for four days.
An example will illustrate the point – suppose the pandal would display sea shells. These shells would have to be procured in hundreds of thousands, segregated, and painted. The source could be many – like from Digha or Puri or the beaches of Marina or Juhu or even from abroad.
This is just one item.
Once procured, they are to be kept in storage till required. And, to assemble them, there would be requirements of glue and, working hands in the form of carpenters, painters, electricians and others.
Sea shell is just one item that has been used. To complete the pandal, there would be hundreds of other such items along with the electrical installations. Another item used was discarded plastic water bottles – the requirement was in hundreds of thousands and the organizers had to procure these also. Or clay pot, lamps and vessels – if not readily available, they were made by local potters. Or – bamboo products.
Obviously, everyone involved in the Durga Puja benefited monetarily and, the men and women down the line gave concrete form to dreams while the organizers walked away with the coveted trophies with promises to return. (to be continued …)
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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School days – Bijoya Dasami and sweets

Bijoya Dasami is the last day of the Durga Puja festival. On this day, Goddess Durga, along with her children, goes back to her husband Lord Shiva in the Himalayas.
The day is a sad one because it would bring to an end the festivities but, there always remained the silver lining because, on this occasion, the younger ones would touch the feet of elders to get their blessings. And – blessings minus sweets is meaningless and certainly not in order. Therefore, there are sweets and sweets.

In our days, most of these sweets would be homemade – the elder women of the family would stay up at nights and toil with ingredients like flour, coconut and chhana to create mouthwatering delicacies that would vanish in no time.
Then there would be salty stuff like the nimkis or chanachur to add to the tastes.
And – since this Bijoya had to be attended to meticulously, we would go from one house to another, carry out the ritual of touching the feet of elders in the house and then wait for the plate of goodies. The process would not be restricted to only relatives but would also encompass neighbors as well.

Since schools would be closed, our visits would go on till lunch time and by the time we came home, we would have lost all appetite for normal lunch. (to be continued …)