The Sardar family’s Durga Puja, a tradition since 1942, showcases the grandeur of Bengali culture, blending religious devotion with unbridled celebration. From intricate idol-making to lavish feasts for hundreds, the festival transforms their home into a hub of old-world charm, reflecting the wealth, artistry, and familial bonds that define this iconic event.
At 84 years, our family Durga Puja is actually one of the younger ones around. Most households celebrating the Durga Puja have been doing so for at least a century, if not many centuries. What is common to all these families, mine included, is that these five days offers a glimpse into an older time. A time when families were joint, kitchens were shared and there was an air of oneness among the multiple parts of our large families that one seldom sees today in daily. Branches of the family that have moved out of the ancestral home, come to stay, children play together, men and women who haven’t met through the year greet each other like they have never spent a day away from each other. It’s a time for celebration, of decking up like we’re all headed to a big fat Bong wedding. Everyday. These bits are the most visible parts of a Durga Puja in any household where it is conducted. Behind the scenes of the festivities, what you don’t see, is a tremendous level of organisational requirement that needs rigour, stamina and even discipline. Because organising a Durga Puja is an expensive and elaborate affair that involves not just money but manpower and tremendous effort on the part of those who organise it.
For the organisers of the Sardar family’s Durga puja, the wheels actually begin to start rolling in mid-July, specifically on the day of Rath Yatra. Alongside the ritual worship of Lord Jagannath, a 9-foot-long plank of sturdy wood that will actually be used in the construction of the 13-feet tall idol is consecrated. This is where the prep work for the five days really starts. Over the course of the next two or three months, depending on the Durga Puja (and Navratri) dates, the idol takes shape at the hands of expert craftsmen. Wooden planks, including the consecrated one, are used to create the base platform on which a bamboo framework is built. This strong frame will support the goddess, her mount, the asura and her four children Lakshmi, Saraswati, Ganesha and Kartikeya. All made of straw bundles, mud and several layers of clay and finally paint.
While the popular perception is that Durga Puja is a five-day festival, the actual worship of the goddess is done through the entire length of the Navratri. It starts the day after Mahalaya, which marks the end of Pitr Paksha, when we offer libations to our ancestors. The first five days of the pujas is conducted on a copper vessel filled with water from Ganga. Called the Debighot, this represents the goddess without ascribing any form. What really changes on the sixth day is scale when we start conducting the ritual worship of the idol that has been painstakingly created and adorned with jewellery. From now, till Vijaya Dashami, which usually coincides with Dussehra, is a time of that unbridled celebration that the world knows as the Durga Puja festival.
To the Bengali diaspora spread around the world, the Durga Puja – or pujo, as we like to call it, doesn’t stop at being a religious festival. It’s far bigger than that. It’s a pageantry. Of colours, of artistry, of costumes, cuisine and even music. Most of all it is an unbridled show of wealth. The wealth of the landed gentry, the wealth of culture, craftsmanship and general bounty. In fact, bounty and blessings are at the heart of the festival’s story and significance.
Our own family puja was started in 1942 at our home in what is now Bangladesh by my grandfather, late Arabinda Sardar, only when the family became wealthy enough to construct a house large enough to build a thakur dalaan – a raised pillared open temple where the altar of the deity is established. The celebration of the goddess required space and grandeur. For the next 14 years, till 1956, the Sardar family’s Durga puja was conducted there without hindrance. Even after the turmoil and tragedy of Partition, without any relenting of pomp. A stray incident involving the Pakistani Army (it was East Pakistan then) led to the shifting of the puja to our current home in north Kolkata in 1957. To ensure that none of the grandeur of the old house went missing the current thakur dalaan was constructed in 1958-59. Made of black and white marble and adorned with six chandeliers, it was as much a grand home for the goddess’ annual visit as it was a statement of wealth and prosperity in a city where there were many more families conducting the Durga Puja for far longer than we had.
For the last 69 years, the Sardar family puja has been conducted on this very spot. And should you visit my home during these five days, you’d think there’s a wedding happening everyday. People decked up to their necks with the very best of traditional clothes or new age designer stuff and jewellery, a hub of old-world glamour is what the house transforms into.
But it’s no fun to celebrate alone. So we invite our friends, business associates, colleagues, acquaintances and literally anyone we know, to visit and celebrate with us. And when Bengalis celebrate it’s not just about hanging out together and chitchatting till the end of time. It’s about food. Food is really at the centre of all our celebrations through the year, but especially during the pujas. The larger diaspora may take this in its cultural stride with a hint of pride about chicken rolls and fish fries and biryanis at the multiple food stalls around every pandal in every corner of the city, but the connection of the celebration with food goes back to its agricultural connect.
Durga puja is conducted twice a year, both coinciding with the two Navratris. The more popular, and glam one is of course the one we’re in the middle of, which happens every autumn. According to the version of the Ramayana composed by the poet Krittibas Ojha in the 15th century, Lord Rama started the autumnal Durga puja to seek the blessings of the goddess on his way to Lanka. The less known Durga puja, which legend says is the original, is conducted in spring. If you haven’t guessed it already, one is a time for sowing rice and the other is harvest season. And rice is Bengal’s staple. Food.
At our home, around 300-400 people eat everyday on an average. Each day, a different menu is curated, somedays strictly vegetarian, other days with fish at the core of each meal. And that’s just food.
The ritual worship itself also pulls in vast amount of resources. Each day, mounds of rice, sweets, fruits and flowers are offered. Notably, 108 lotus flowers each day. During this period, our house and our celebration transforms into a micro economy all of its own. From the local grocer’s shop to the fishmonger and the flower vendor, all of whom have kept the family supplied during this time for decades, look forward to these five days. To give an idea of the scale, last year we spent just under Rs 2 lakh on sweets alone. The 648 lotuses that we need alone cost us between Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000 depending on availability. Then there are the hundreds of garlands and other flowers. Grocery bills run into lakhs too.
Then there is the cost of the making of the idol. This year it is Rs 1.2 lakh. When you add up the cost of hiring extra manpower, which is sorely needed, the electricity bill for all the units consumed when we flood the house with lights every evening, the merchants from whom we have been buying the multiple articles of clothing and brass utensils that is offered to the goddess and her troupe each day, it’s easy to see why Durga Puja was never conducted by the regular middle class of Bengal.
Each day of the Durga Puja sees a bounty of supplies being consumed at the altar of Shakti. By the time we are done and the idol is immersed in the flowing waters of the Ganga, the bills cross lakhs. Around 15 lakh or so for our family where we don’t have to spend on creating artistic themes and pandals. This is not including the additional bills that we rack up with the Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation (CESC) for the extra units of power consumed during the time, the extra manpower deployed to help with the organising of the vast resources needed, the twice-a-day cleaning of the sacred utensils, the extra security deployed to ensure that the gold bedecked idol remains secure. Even the gods and goddesses need safety after all. So intrinsic is the connection between Durga Puja and wealth that within ten days after the immersion, every site that conducts the ritual worship of the divine feminine mandatorily worships the goddess Lakshmi on the same altar. From family to family, it is no different. The Durga Puja has always been the realm of the privileged – the ones who have.
“Our family puja is more than 260 years old,” said Monimaya Chunder. Indeed, the Chunder family puja was started in 1760, just three years after Siraj had lost the province to Clive of the East India Company. Ram Proshad Chunder had first conducted the pujas at the Chunder residence in Jorasanko in north Kolkata. Sometime in the late 19th century, Ram Proshad’s descendant Subol Chand Chunder moved the puja to its current location in Jhamapukur, another locality in north Kolkata. Subol Chand Chunder was a textile baron of his times with factories in Birmingham and Manchester, and was a founder member of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce. To this date, the family with all its branches, come together at the Chunder thakurbari (house of the gods) each year to observe centuries old traditions and customs. “When I got married, I was taught that throughout the pujas the women will have to wear the gold noth (a traditional oversized nose ring) and mol (anklets). That was 65 years ago. Even today all the women of the household, including the multiple branches of the Chunder family, honour that tradition,” she said.
Wearing gold jewellery, in fact, during this period is a custom in almost every Bengali household with even men donning jewellery in some families. “If you come to our house during the Durga puja you will see me wearing lots of gold. We belong to the community of gold merchants and we consider it auspicious to wear gold on our bodies during the puja,” explained Supratim Roy, a seventh-generation descendant of the house of Badan Chand Roy, a businessman and philanthropist who started the puja in the mid-19th century. Originally a member of the Pal clan and a business magnate with a factory in Italy, he was awarded the title of ‘Roy’ for his relentless philanthropy. One hundred and seventy years later, the Roy family puja and home is one of the most sought after for its Insta-worthiness. While Mrs. Chunder doesn’t particularly shed light on the kind of expenses that are incurred through the puja, Roy tells me that his family expenses run well into the 30-lakh bracket. “This is not any normal puja but its MahaPuja, so there are lots and lots of detailed ingredients were needed which was not possible for everyone to support and also the human support which was required could only be afforded by the wealthy families,” explains Nabendu Mullick, the seventh generation of the Mullick family of Malapara in Kolkata. The Mullick family’s Durga Puja was started by Baishnabdas Mullick, another gold merchant, around 265 years ago.
For all these behind the scenes story however, nothing changes the fact that when the goddess comes calling it’s like a daughter coming home with her family. It is when every Bengali forgets all his troubles and dips himself in a pool of joy and fun. And somewhere in there, my family and I deck up in our crisp kurtas, either traditional or funky or designer, paired with the inimitable Bengali dhuti (dhoti), the women in their brilliant sarees and adorned in gold like the goddess in the temple. We splurge on food, together as a family, revel in the sound of the dhaak (the traditional drum of Bengal) and immerse ourselves in the joy of a festival that is all about being extravagant.