A Bengali's Durga Puja Experience Far Away From Bengal

chillibreeze writer — Medha Roy

I jump up at the first stroke of the dhaak just outside my window. It is Saptami, the seventh day of the Durga Pujas, the second of my Puja vacations. I don’t need to rush out of the house for work. I don’t need to check my email to see if my boss needs something even before I reach my desk. My college friend will be here in no time and I will be gone for the whole day, pandal-hopping with her. My mother has been frying luchis for us. The smell is inviting enough to make a sanyasi renounce his abstinence. The bell rings and I run out to hug my friend and welcome her in.

…..this was Puja 2008.

This year, I am away from everyone that I have known to be mine, all my life. I am in San Jose with my husband, thousands of miles away from my parents and friends. It is a special occasion for me, since this is the first Puja after my wedding in January. But there is no dhaak to wake me up in the morning. I see no brightly-dressed women and teenagers flaunting their expensive watches and new clothes and impressing members of the opposite sex. In fact, I wake up on Saptami with the same thing on my mind – coffee and breakfast for my husband, lunch for me, and dinner for us and a friend. My husband, the sweetheart that he is, assures me that the evening will usher in a smile on my face. We will go to the closest Puja pandal in the Bay Area. After my husband leaves for work, a friend’s wife calls and injects, with all her might, the excitement that she finds lacking in me. She tells me that I won’t miss Kolkata Puja after going to the pandal. I take her word for it and spend an entire hour readying the saree and jewelry that I will wear in the evening.

Come evening…and I am all set to go to the pandal. My husband returns with our bachelor friend and after a quick dinner, we leave for the pandal. The unending queue of cars tells us that we have reached the venue. The first thing that strikes me is the microphones being used to draw people’s attention. In America, this was the first time that I saw mikes being used. Having gotten used to an uncanny silence and stillness since my arrival in this country, the loudspeakers seemed unkindly loud.

On making my entry into the pandal, I take barely a minute to return to Kolkata in my mind’s eye. People elbow each other to reach some undefined destination before the other. Some people click photographs of their wives and children as if they are going away for a lifelong vacation. Women embrace each other while making sure that their jewelry is heavier and more expensive than their friend’s - I started to smile.

Amidst all these funny-yet-annoying scenes, there stands Maa Durga in all her resplendent grace, smiling down and forgiving (I am sure) all the follies of the human world. I keep looking at her with rapt attention and then I feel my cheeks and ears getting warm. And even before I can control them, tears welled up and I begin to miss my parents more than ever. Not that I went out with them every Puja, but I did always return to them at night.

Durga Puja this year was one occasion that made me miss home even more than I thought it would. I was slowly and steadily settling down to married life with a wonderful husband and friend. I am still under the spell and I hope Maa blesses me so that I can be happy, even when away from home.

Chillibreeze's disclaimer: This is a contributed article and was published on Chillibreeze in November, 2009. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of Chillibreeze as a company. Chillibreeze has a strict anti-plagiarism policy. Please contact us to report any copyright issues related to this article. The relevance of the facts and figures cited (if any) could change after a period of time.

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