24.10.2004

Durga Puja - Kolkata

Every traveller worth their salt feels nourished when a dash of serendipity is added to their journeying meal. So it was on Friday night when we bumped into Kim, enthusiastically urging us to split a fare and cab it on down to Muhammed Ali Park. We'd fortuitously arrived in Kolkata at the height of the annual festival for Bengalis - Durga Puja.

Durga Puja - a massive celebration of the triumph of good over evil. Of Gods defeating Demons. Of Goddess Durga vanquishing Asura the Demon and returning the Heavenly Kingdom to the Gods.

We rode down streets decorated with thousands of fairy lights and turned onto the main chaotic street. Crowd control like you've never seen. Hundreds of traffic cops in their brown shirts and berets somehow managing to maintain order. Massive, permanent street barricades funnelled the crowds up one side of the street and down another. We passed the park, and one city block, then another, and another. Finally we were allowed out of the cab to join the queue. What a queue - to stretch for so many blocks down both sides of the street.

'A curious, unannounced inclusion in this years festival' was what all the local eyes spoke to us. We moved faster than expected. Arrived at the entrance to the park. Up the stairs. Through to the temporary Pandals that house the idols of Durga and her children Ganesh, Lakshmi, Saraswati, and Kartik. Pandals are the large temporary buildings constructed of wood frames and stretched white cloth. All lit up. Competing with other Pandals in the area for fame, and crowds.

Crowds! Attendance figures in the local paper the next day did not measure totals - only estimates of crowd numbers at any given moment - 30 000 here, 50 000 there. Across the city were numerous Pandals - and total attendance would have to be in the millions.

Once inside the Pandal at Muhammed Ali park we saw the temporary chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, and the ornate painted idols - Durga riding her pet lion while cutting off the head of Asura - and all her children in attendance. Ganesh - being the one given an elephant head, always catches your eye. Poor Ganesh.

Anyway - those Bengalis really put on a show for Danielle's birthday.