“Local kids would get hold of receipt books and come and ring our doorbell in the month before Saraswati pujo and ask for chanda (funds) which they were allegedly collecting for organising Saraswati Pujo. They had no concrete answer when I asked them where their pujo was. Mysteriously you’d see the same kids come to play with new footballs soon after that. That was what their Saraswati pujo chanda was for!
Sometimes your dadu would say, I will give chanda if you can spell ‘Saraswati.’ Of course they couldn’t,” I could sense the smile on didu’s face as we chatted about Saraswati Pujo of the early ‘80s during our last phone call.
They had just moved into Kolkata after my grandpa had retired. All this was new to them. As it was to me. I was ten and we had just moved to the city.
Saraswati Pujo chanda shenanigans were literally kiddy stuff and involved small change. The month leading up to Durga Puja was much worse. The local para boys would come and demand much larger sums and harass people till they got it. Most were unemployed and affiliated with the local party office.
- That was 40 years back. I went to our parar (community) Saraswati pujo today. This is the one organised by Bandra’s Vivekanda Club.
I prayed to the goddess of learning, met my friends from the club whom I meet primarily during the pujas, had khichuri bhog, some of which dribbled onto my tummy as you will see in the last pic. The goddess’s way of blessing a food writer’s tummy?!
Kids from a local school came to get blessed and have prasad.
Saraswati Pujo is all about children at the end, and the child in one.
I gave a small chanda before I left. I always do that. Not that I am asked to.