Everyone must have dreamt of visiting Kolkata during Durga Pooja for all the charm it brings. Being an annual hindu festival, it is mostly celebrated in eastern states of India. Especially this is the largest festival of Bengali Hindus.

As told by our friend, the celebration actually goes on for 5 days and those five days were declared as official holidays in West Bengal.

First day -Shashthi
Shashti marks the procession of bringing in the deity(Aagaman). It takes place on the sixth day of Navrathri. The beautifully decorated idols were brought to the home or to the magnificent pandals.

Second day – Saptami
Saptami takes place on the seventh day of Navrathri. Early in the morning, a small banana plant called Kola Bou is taken to the river to be bathed and dressed in a red bordered sari and carried back in a procession to be placed near the idol of the Goddess, which literally means bringing in the pran of Ma Durga to the idol.

This is then followed by ritualistic prayers and pooja, which will take place for all the remaining days of the festival(Ashtami, Navami, Dashami).

Third day- Ashtami
Being one of the auspicious day, a day long fasting is undertaken by people. On this day, a holy pot filled with water and spices, is decorated with mango leaves with a cocunut kept on top of it where the face of Ma Durga is drawn. Weapons of Goddess Durga are also worshipped on this day. 

Come on! Enough of theories. Let me bring out the celebrations of Durga Pooja from my very own experience from Navami.

“A youth spent without stories to tell is no youth at all”

Forth day – Navami
For the much awaited Durga Pooja celebrations in our friend’s home, I and my roommate boarded train to Jamshedpur. As per schedule, our train was supposed to reach Jamshedpur by 9 am. Our plan was to reach his home on Navami to witness the Aarathi pooja.

Nevertheless we were lucky enough to treat ourselves with Bhog(Offerings made to the Goddess Durga which is later distributed to the devotees). Bhog – Chachada, Kichadi(And I love pronouncing these dishes’ name).

Dandiya Dancing
While eating, our friend’s mother asked us whether we were interested in dancing. Being someone who is always open to opportunities, I instantly said with a glee that we were interested, thus pulling my roommate’s leg. After having food, we went to the dance practice room. 

Since they had also just started practising, it was easy for us to join them. We practiced for an hour and went on stage to perform.

True to the adage that pooja days are the days where the city doesn’t sleep, we were stunned to see the jam-packed crowd all through out the night. We saw people of different ages dressed in their best attires waiting in the queue to get a glimpse of Ma Durga in the pandals and to celebrate the victory of good over evil. The whole city was lit in various colours making the night awfully alive. There were also plenty of street foods options available near every pandals

Kashidih PandalWe first ventured out to Kashidih pandal. We were awestruck at the brightly lit mammoth construction. The theme was to depict the varied dance forms of India from kathakali to nongkrem dance. 

The different dance forms were portrayed inside small clay pots arranged in stack which looked even more adorable.

Ma Durga of Kashidih Pandal was mind-blowing matching with the overall set.

Tuiladumri Pandal
From there, we hopped to Tuiladumri Pandal, which was having a theme of Monastery beautifully lit in gold. Both the interior as well as the exterior decoration of the pandal detailed the theme of monastery.
 

It was depicting the scene of Nepal earthquake with high rise buildings falling and helicopters flying on rescue mission. I marveled at the hard labour being put to create such a mighty construction.
Adhityapur Pandal
Though we were totally exhausted from all the walking, we hopped onto our car, with the zeal to see the best pandal of Jamshedpur and progressed towards Adhityapur. That was a huge globe shaped pandal depicting World peace. 

There was a queue for about two kilometers. The sight of which made us even more exhausted. Nevertheless the fervor to see the best pandal kept us moving.

I heard from my friend’s cousin that the rich people spend crores of rupees on pandals and it’s a matter of pride for them to host the best pandal in their locality. Some of the other pandals which we saw that night.

We retired back home after pandal hopping by 5:30 am.

The married women dressed in their traditional Bengali saree(White saree with red border), first applied red sindhoor to Ma Durga idol. And then they applied sindhoor to other married women, exchanging sweets and hugs among one another.  The view of all married women with red sindhoor applied on their faces, was charming.

Procession was there to carry the Goddess to the river to be immersed in water(symbolizing Durga’s reunion with Shiva).

In Jamshedpur, they took the Goddess to subarnarekha river for the immersion ceremony. All the way, people were dancing to the beats irrespective of age, gender.

On reaching the subarnarekha river, I was happy to hear announcements to remove the plastic from the idol before immersion, as there were some environmental measures being taken before immersion of the idol.

After Visarjan, we reached back home and got refreshed to treat ourselves with an appeasing food.

Though we had plans to visit other pandals(Ekdalia, Singhi park and Hindustan club), we returned back to room to find some rest.

Next day, we explored the iconic places of Kolkata before boarding our flight at night.