Write a report expenses during Durga puja is a waste of resources for or against
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Durga Puja is known affectionately as Pujo to many Bengalis. What are you doing for Pujo this year, the chant goes. Pandal-hopping usually tops the list, at least for those in Calcutta who are spoiled for choice. If you live abroad, like in the United States, you might drive a few hours to the nearest big city like Chicago or Houston or Atlanta, to join fellow Bengalis, attired in silk saris and kurta pajamas, to listen to performances by musicians flown in from India and eat food catered by local Indian restaurants. Despite the fact that usually the entire festival is crammed into a single weekend, organised in high school halls lit by cold, white tube lights, and usually held at least a week after the original dates of celebration in India, the mood at these events is overwhelmingly cheerful.
I feel nostalgic about countless things, but Durga Puja is not one of them. Almost every time I have attended it here in America, I have experienced a feeling of crushing déja vu. It is the opposite of nostalgia. Instead of a yearning to recapture the past, I have felt a desperate longing to get away from the festivities. And it is not because I am haunted by any dark childhood trauma.
Ostentation and profligacy
There is a lot to like about Durga Puja. The pounding of the dhaaks (a double-sided drum played with sticks), the smoky spell of the dhunuchi dance, the communal bhog eaten together, the creative decorations and avatars of the pandals in Calcutta, the excellent literature published in Pujo annuals, the traditions of the barowari or family pujas in old parts of the city, and so on. Yes, I too have some fond memories of Pujo from my teenage years associated with new clothes, staying up all night in the neighbourhood pandal, acting as Hanuman in a play by Sukumar Ray, and the bright lights of Maddox Square, arguably the hippest Pujo in Calcutta back in the day. It is hard not to romanticise some part of it when you are looking back from a great distance.
But there is also so much to dislike about Durga Puja. The year before I left India for the US, I was working for The Statesman in Calcutta, which meant that every day during Durga Puja I had to go to work. This was a blessing because by then I had outgrown the festivities. That autumn, I paid an anti-tribute to the festival by writing a critique of the massive expenditures and waste of resources that the city underwent annually. That year was particularly disturbing in the light of the terrible floods that had ravaged the neighbouring state of Orissa.
I remember visiting different puja committees, the Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation, the municipal corporation and others to investigate the costs involved, and of course they were absurdly high. Neighbourhoods vied with one another to win the best pandal competitions, by being more extravagant than the other. Some of them resembled famous monuments. Their interiors were adorned with chandeliers and brocade. Sure, they looked grand and creative and many came from outside Calcutta to gape open-mouthed at their opulence. But in a country where poverty ran so deep, it all seemed a humongous waste. Certainly, the light displays were breathtaking in their splendour. Street after street was strung with lights that assumed the shape of peacocks, elephants, national monuments and international celebrities. But in a land where millions lived without electricity, it was yet another irony.
In a wise move, the editor of the supplement I was then writing for published next to my lengthy critique a gushing tribute to the importance of Durga Puja for Bengalis. For, practicality rarely triumphs over popular sentiment in these matters. And communities do need celebrations that bring them together. Durga Puja is an integral part of Bengali tradition, affords many people their livelihood – such as the clay idol-makers of Kumartuli or professional dhaakis – and helps preserve Bengali art forms. I was opposed not to celebrating the festival but to its excess.