Durga Puja in Kolkata

Symbol of Strength, Motherhood and Love,
Maa Durga.

- Rabindranath Tagore

Durga Puja is an annual festival celebrated in September or October, most notably in Kolkata, in West Bengal of India, but also in other parts of India and amongst the Bengali diaspora. It marks the ten-day worship of the Hindu mother-goddess Durga. In the months preceding the festival, small artisanal workshops sculpt images of Durga and her family using unfired clay pulled from the Ganga River. The worship of the goddess then begins on the inaugural day of Mahalaya, when eyes are painted onto the clay images to bring the goddess to life. It ends on the tenth day, when the images are immersed in the river from where the clay came. Thus, the festival has also come to signify 'home-coming' or a seasonal return to one's roots.

Durga Puja is seen as the best instance of the public performance of religion and art, and as a thriving ground for collaborative artists and designers. The festival is characterized by large-scale installations and pavilions in urban areas, as well as by traditional Bengali drumming and veneration of the goddess. During the event, the divides of class, religion and ethnicities collapse as crowds of spectators walk around to admire the installations.

Durga is an ancient deity of Hinduism according to available archeological and textual evidence. However, the origins of Durga puja are unclear and undocumented. Surviving manuscripts from the 14th-century provide guidelines for Durga puja, while historical records suggest the royalty and wealthy families to be sponsoring major Durga Puja public festivities, since at least the 16th-century. The 11th or 12th-century Jain text Yasatilaka by Somadeva mentions an annual festival dedicated to a warrior goddess, celebrated by the king and his armed forces, and the description mirrors attributes of Durga puja.

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During the Durga Puja Festival, Kolkata explodes with more than thousand thematic and colorful pandals and reveals several forms of goddess Durga idols, thus pulling in a huge number of crowds and making it one of the biggest autumn festivals in the world.

A glimpse of some of the best Durga Puja are as follows-
[ ** you can go through about these Puja by clicking on it. ]

In 2019, Kolkata's Durga puja was nominated by the Indian government for the 2020 UNESCO Representative list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Durga puja also stands to be politically and economically significant. The committees organising Durga puja in Kolkata have close links to politicians. Politicians patronize the festival by making donations or helping raise money for funding of community pujas, or by marking their presence at puja events and inaugurations.