Durga puja is a public affair, and for many it is a private one. Some families have been organising their own puja for generations. Our member Ms J. Chatterjee speaks about the tradition of the 100-year-old puja in her family.
This is the 100th year of the puja at our house. The house is undergoing repairs, and bit by bit it is getting a new coat of paint. I am looking forward to the days of festivity when the women of the house will light up the house in their wonderful saris, the men in their dhotis and kurtas.
The Chattopadhyay family Durga puja was initiated by my father-in-law and his brothers in 1925. My father-in-law, late Suresh Chandra Chattopadhyay, was a freedom fighter and revolutionary leader during the British rule. Back then there used to be a community puja in our neighbourhood. Once, for some reason, he was humiliated there due to some disagreement. He convinced his elder brother, late Ramchandra Chattopadhyay, to start their own puja so that the Chattopadhyay family would never be deprived of festive cheer.
Originally our puja would be conducted in a room. In later years the brothers built a 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘬𝘶𝘳 𝘥𝘢𝘭𝘢𝘯, an arched portico, for the main worship, and shifted the puja here. My son, who lives in America with his family, will be visiting us during the puja days.
Nowadays we don’t step out to see other pujas in the city. Some of the other members of the family, who are settled in America, Canada, Dubai, and Mumbai, are going to congregate for the celebrations after a long time. Thanks to my father-in-law and his brothers, we can celebrate with our near and dear ones.
The flurry of activities reaches a peak on Ashtami, when the devotees break their day-long fast with a feast. While our puja is an intimate family affair, the feast involves several invitees. Cooks are hired for this occasion and the kitchen is up and running throughout the day. Regardless of religion or caste, no one is sent away on an empty stomach. While the feast is predominantly vegetarian fare, the women of the house prepare a fish curry as part of the 𝘣𝘩𝘰𝘨.
The days of the puja bring us such joy that we become sad when the mother goddess leaves us. For the immersion of the idols, we walk down the street to the Ganga. The holy river is just five minutes away from us. As the idols are sent back to the clay from which they were made, we begin dreaming of the coming year when we shall be together and the house will brighten up again.
(𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘚𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘌𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘣𝘺 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳)

In 2018, our member Mr S. C. Sarkar travelled to Austin, Texas, to visit his son. He was able to form a first-hand impression of the United States of America, a land he had until that point encountered only in books and films.
My daughter-in-law, her parents, and I boarded a flight to Delhi and then Doha, and finally reached Dallas, Texas. My son, who lives in Austin, drove three-and-a-half hours with his six-month-old son to receive us. It was evening when we were driving back, and my son was anxious to take us back to the comfort of his home. We were stopped by a car with blue-and-red beacon lights on its roof; it was of course the police, who informed us that we were fractionally over the speed limit. I was a bit apprehensive, but the policeman understood our situation and let us off with a cautionary word. And so, my first experience with America was a close brush with the law, albeit a not-too-unpleasant one.
Austin is picturesque with a mixed topography. There are hills to the west and the rest of it is flat. The roads were sparkling clean, and the green bits of the city were very well maintained. The city is planned in such a way that all the shops are to be found in malls. There are no standalone shops anywhere, no grocers, no individual, or local sellers.
I found it a bit unsettling that there weren’t too many pedestrians around, as is the case in Kolkata and other Indian cities, though the city itself was quite populated. Everyone seemed to own vehicles. The roads were packed with cars.
American roads were a revelation to me. The roads weren’t dusty at all, and I later found out the reason: they are paved with a top layer of gravel which creates a buffer between the wheels and the topsoil of the road where the dust collects. This prevents the dust, trapped below the gravel, from flying around.
While I was impressed with the road design, I was disoriented by the fact that cars drove on the right side of the street. The first time I got into my son’s car, I felt like something was wrong!
Though I was from India, I wasn’t too far from Bengalis. I saw many of my compatriots and Bangladeshis around, who ran many of the restaurants in the area.
My first impression of America was that it was heaven, but it soon turned out that it was a heaven which had sobering touches. As we drove around Austin, I saw beggars with placards slung over their chests, which read ‘I am homeless. Give me food and shelter.’ The sight of poverty in a country I had believed to be uniformly rich was a cause of surprise for me.
Nothing, though, besmirched my perception of Austin, a clean and beautiful city. When I returned to Kolkata after a few weeks I carried a piece of it back with me in my heart.