The sociology of a probashi Durga Puja

Dinner is about nostalgia today. Kumror chhechki and machhed mudo diye dal by Banu as taught by me. Gobindo Bhog purchased from Bio Basics

 

 

This story is dedicated to the late Behram Contractor AKA Busybee, whose birthday it is today and whose columns had a big impact on my writing.

It is Monday and I wanted to sleep a bit longer this morning but I did not have the option to do so. The car cleaner came cheerfully at 8am for the keys. Then Baby Loaf jumped on to the bed at 9am and kept meowing. He wanted to tell me about his plans for the pujos (Durga Puja). The crushes that he had. The cap pistol that he wanted me to buy. His new clothes allocation plans and check with me about what he should wear on Ashthami which is the biggest day of the Durga Puja for us Bengalis.

You talkin about me?

Meow.

Let me sleep Baby Loaf

Meow.

I will talk later, lie down.

Meow.

Loafuuuuuuu. Daddy needs to sleep

I turned away from him and then occasionally looked back to see him up on his haunches, peering at me. He finally lay down beside me and I patted him. And then again …..

Meow.

OK, OK, I said and then headed with him to the hall where some food was kept in the cat bowls. Baby Loaf started eating and I went back to sleep.

Meow.

Arghhhhhhhhhhhh.

He was back on the bed!

So tempted to wake him up as revenge

K is the one who gets this treatment normally but she was in the other room finishing her online meditation class. At least Baby Loaf woke me up at 9 and not at 4.30, 5 and 6am as he tends to do with K! I got up and I saw little Nimki lying on the sofa outside looking at me expectantly. He loves his breakfast but for all his mischievousness, he will never wake either of us till we are up. Baby Loaf is of course Baby Raja. The pampered first born, like I once was. I got up, fed the boys and started my day.

Wait did you praise me over dada?

 

Our relatively new morning cook, Kalpana Tai aka #kayteecooks, trundled in, bedecked in a festive white and red sari blouse ensemble. I gave her the duties of making todays #finelychoppedbreakfasts. Omelette and toast for me. Boiled egg and sauteed (Kaytee loves the term) capsicum for K. “Please check the salt in the bharli vangi. (stuffed baigan is what she called it). I am doing a navratri vrat (fast) and since you people have eggs etc, I will not be tasting the food I cook these days,” she said as she left

That explained the festive attire! The dish was perfect. She is a cook as K and I often tell each other after we try her food.

Bharli vagi and roti by #kayteecooks. Halva fish curry by Pia Promina. Kerala kuruva rice from Bio Basics

It is Monday. It is also Shoshthi. The first big day of the Durga Pujos. The beginning of our short puja holidays when I was in school. I went to schools run by Protestants and Christmas holidays were longer than the pujas, unlike for those who went to the state boards.

It is also a Bharat bandh today (called by the Shiv Sena led government in Maharashtra). In Calcutta life would come to a standstill on such days when I was in school in the 80s and college in the early 90s. Especially if called by the leftists. The Bengal Left could be quite flexible. The chief minister loved his Scotch. Local Party boys organised pujas and sold books from Russia, translated into English and Bengali at the pandal. Religion could be opium of the masses but a bit of Marx was lost in translation by the time it moved out of Coffee House into the rest of Kolkata. I wonder if they would have ever called a Bharat bandh on the first day of the pujas.

I live in Mumbai now. Am married to a non-Bengali. Most of my friends and neighbours are non-Bengali. The pujos, once the biggest thing in my life, now comes alive for me only when I step into a pandal. I get goosebumps when I do so. I kid you not. It is like receiving a concentrated shot of Bengaliana. A reminder of the childhood that I have left behind, albeit with no regrets. I am very happy with my life here but there is something about walking into a pujo pandal that pulls at my heartstrings. It could be seeing so many Bengalis at once place, the women dressed in saris, the men often still in the 1980s, that does it. Or hearing so much of Bengali all around – ‘ei Poltu ekhane ai,’ ‘Chumki tui ki boro hoye gechhish,’ ‘thakur moshai edike ektu shanti jol deben,’ ‘kaku du to moghlai poratha banan,’ ‘ei papai, bollam ice cream khash na, thanda lege jaabe,’ ‘edike khichuri beshi kore, committee memberer mashi ini,’ ‘Babushona tumi jekhane thako volunteer counter’e chole esho, tomar ma baba opekha korchhen’. The sound of the dhaaki beating his drums. The Kishore, Hemanta Kumar and Manna Dey songs blaring out on public speakers; all take me back straight to Bansdroni in Kolkata, even though I might be at the Bandra pujo in our neighbourhood. When I stand at the bhog counter and help distribute the bhog, then I feel that I am back in our apartment complex where I did the same while growing up.

K sums up the relation between the boys

I have a few Bengali friends from Kolkata in the city. I met most thanks to my blog. We bump into each other at times at the Bandra pujo. Usually at the snack counter, munching on overpriced mediocre fare. Or we watch some of the cultural programmes together. Especially when it is Bappi da or Usha di. At times we meet at our homes for dinner. Usually over some Bengali nosh. Cooked at home. Or over a potluck. Or called in from caterers and these days home chefs too.

This is the second pujo after the Covid 19 pandemic started. The two pujos I visit in Mumbai, the Bandra Notun Polli pujo and the Bombay Durga Bari (Tejpal Park) pujo, remain closed affairs his year too with pujo rituals and cultural programmes being broadcasted online by hardworking committee members such as my young friend Priyanka. I guess this is the case for most other pujas in the city. Online Pujo is the thing this year with many channels from Kolkata broadcasting the festivities from the city.

Call me old fashioned, but an online pujo does not work for me and let me tell you why.

I feel that there are two aspects to the pujos. The first is religious, the prayers and rituals. Barring the anjali, I have never really taken part in any of this. If I had, I might have watched the pujo (the prayers) but otherwise not.

The other aspect is social, manifested through cultural programmes broadcast from here and from Kolkata, the broadcasts of the pandals, protimas and lights. The latter, I am happy to skip. Stepping into a pandal evokes a sense of nostalgia, bordering on melancholy, which fades only when I bump into friends. The feeling of being away from home. A feeling I rarely feel otherwise as to me Mumbai is home, this is my life. So I would rather practice detachment than dip into the slippery slope of nostalgia by watching these broadcasts. That is a personal choice. I know many, my fellow Presidency sociology alumni and junior, professor Soma Chaudhuri for example, an academic who is based in the US for years and who feels connected with home through such broadcasts.

Writing is my way of connecting to my roots

 

The other fun part of the Durga Pujo is meeting up with friends in each other housed. Last year that was taboo as we were just 8 months into the pandemic. This year is more likely, though the pujos fall entirely during working days which means no holidays. There are some plans though. Fingers crossed.

A sure shot way of meeting fellow probashi Bengalis is when one goes notun jama shopping which K took me for on Sunday, as unlike her, I am not a fan of online shopping. In the first store that we went to we met a neighbour from my building complex in Kolkata. She was almost a baby when her family had moved in while I was approaching my teens. We grew up in the building puja together, she was more a member of my younger brother’s circle. K watched indulgently as Bonnie and I traded stories of nostalgia and of leaving home. In the next shop, I met a couple who is a part of more core Bengali group here and whom I first knew through my blog. We made promises to meet at least once over dinner the pujos.

 

My pujos plans apart from these?  To go for a cardio check up tomorrow and then to get my eye power tested the day after. Very mid 40s Bengali in a sense!

Khela hok, as they say. Game on.

Happy pujos. 

Update: This is relevant to probashis and others interested in Bengali culture, especially in Mumbai. We received 4 beautifully hand painted coasters showing the different transport modes of Kolkata from Shubhojit this evening. These are from Bag of Bong where his wife, Trina Mukherjees individually paints coasters, wall plates, cushion covers, saris and much more. I am attaching the link to their site and you can check out their range. Thanks for the beautiful gifts Trina and Shubhojit. 

 

Bag of Bong box

 

Bag of Bong coasters that we received today