The immersion. Day of Devi Durga
The greatest festival of Durgapuja has come again. My daughter informed me excitedly,
" Ma, this year Durgapuja will be in the Time Square; So we will go on Saturday."
So long, in all other years we used to go long way like Jersey City, Edison , Princeton, Bharat Sebasrom, Queens etc.
The festival Campus appeared as if I was in Bengal, not in New York! A vast Bengali crowd with new sari & jewelry, more gorgeous than the native land made me surprised.
In my childhood there were many poor kids thronged around specially for getting "prosad" i.e.fruits with sweet ;they didn't have new or even old clothes ; Still they looked happy ; they were always in group. Here this prosperity remind me those lean & thin lost faces with a deeper feeling of sadness. That fade ,vague childhood feeling about inequality comes back now to strike conscience .
Why banging with only "feeling" but never actively done anything ?
...........However old we become, but perhaps our childhood never leave us .
I saw this following blog written on 2018.
The biggest festival of Bengal, 'Durga Puja' ended, leaving a feeling of nostalgia like every time. So many years passed by, still, the mind goes back to the childhood of Giridih, small but very much commercially rich mining town. Though I was not aware of it at that time. what I remember was: five new clothes for five days,new shoes,new ribbon;...to pluck flowers at early morning with friends for the neighbourhood puja;...[as if, a competition of who could be first to empty the plants of flowers!] taking bath at early morning ,doing small works in the pandal like making garland, distributing flowers to the devotees,giving 'Anjali';beat of dhak accompanied with 'kasar-ghanta',.. taking 'prasad 'repeatedly in the queue until being caught and chased mockingly, by someone was a great fun ; the freedom to stay outside in the pandal for long hours!
The puja pandal was just opposite to our house. Then three-four hours break at lunchtime, waiting impatiently for the evening to go again in the pandel, wearing a new dress for more fun. In the evening during Aarati time, all ladies used to throng in the pandal; the whole atmosphere seemed to be celestial with the smell of dhup-dhuna, beat of dhak [= drum]. and kasarghanta at least 30 to 40 minutes continuously. At the end of 'arati', we pushed each other to keep our palms over the 'panchpradip'(=divine lamp) for the blessing of the goddess and then touched on own head; and there was also a competition to keep palms over the lamps repeatedly;...as if, who can gather more blessings than the other.
During Aarati I used to look my mother's face turning my neck; she looked so beautiful with bright vermillion red 'Bindi'on the forehead between two eyebrows and new sari. It was my great pleasure to see my mom enjoying any festival, away from the kitchen and home.
I passed different phases in the long passage of life as a wife, as a mother, a daughter-in-law; But all festivals drag me to the memory of childhood, parents, friends.
I feel my parent always stay with me like a shadow! Perhaps, I think, this is because my ID as 'daughter' is most strong in me.
There are no puja festivals in mid-Manhattan. But who bothers!
I am fine with the trove of my memory treasure ....Every morning after taking shower I switched on dhak beat, chanting mantras in 'youtube' from the day of 'Bodhan'(starting-day) to the last day of 'Bisarjan'(Immersion) in full volume to create festival environment in the lonely apartment; Looking at the immersion of the image on screen, I felt the similar childhood nostalgia,-- in Manhattan!
After the immersion, we used to come back in the empty pandal with missing hearts to get 'shantijal' which the priest sprinkled over our head' for peace and blessing of the goddess. The vacant alter without the image in deserted pandal stood only to spread over gloomy air of hollowness.......
The image of clay melted in water after the immersion long ago; but not my memory; it still lingers.........
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