Durga Puja (Durga Pujo in Bengal) fascinates me. When I was in Kolkata Police, I used to be in charge of the Police arrangements in one of the biggest pandals, at College Square. This was physically exhausting. The duty used to start around 4 PM every day. The crowds that throng the four big Pujas in Kolkata, College Square, Md Ali Park, Deshapriyo Park and Santosh Mitra Square are to be seen to be believed. Even at 3 AM, I used to see young mothers with 3/4 month old babies pandal–hopping. Also, the tension – so many separations, so many near stampedes, so many serious incidents just a hair’s breadth away. In big Police arrangements there is usually a “stand down”. At this command, the persons on duty are to wind up for the day until called again. For these four Pujas, no “stand down” command was ever given. We used to stand down when it looked like daylight coming on, then went home to sleep through the day to take up the duty again at 4 PM the next day. One was young then …

Sitting with my officers under the open sky, night after night, amid all the noise and haste, I sometimes wondered why Durga Puja was so popular in Bengal. I read up about it and learnt a few things.

Every Oriya like me goes a little crazy about and around Rath Yatra, the car festival of the deity, Lord Jagannath. The reason is, the Jagannath temple is in Orissa. Mahabharat touches a chord amongst all Indians but a particular one amongst north Indians because many of the places mentioned are still known by their mythological names and strewn around the area – Indraprastha, Kurukshetra, Gurgaon (originally and recently ‘Gurugram’ – the village the Pandavas donated to their Guru, Dronacharya as Gurudakshina) and so on. However, in the entire mythology surrounding Durga Puja, Bengal did not feature. Why then? The reason probably was the British empire.

After the battle of Plassey in 1757, the British became decisive and definitive rulers of Bengal and started expanding their empire rapidly. One of the local kings (Raja Nabakrishna Deb of Shobhabazar Rajbari) wanted to have Lord Clive as his guest of honour and a local festival would be a perfect occasion to host the dignitary. The Panji (calendar for Hindu festivals and dates) was consulted and the next big festival happened to be Durga Puja. Shobhabazar Rajbari has refuted this in 2011, in the 254^th continuous year of the Puja. However, the fact remains that many wealthy Zamindar families in Bengal made British officers of the East India Company guests of honour in the Pujas. The hosts vied with one another in arranging the most sumptuous fares, decorations and entertainment for their guests. This was deemed necessary since the Company was in charge of a large part of India including Bengal after the battles of Plassey and Buxar. Celebration of Durga Puja became an elitist thing with intimations of exclusivity and a feeling of having arrived by hosting a Puja and associating with the British dignitaries. It also must have caused a lot of heartburn and aspiration in those who were excluded.

In 1790, 12 Brahmin friends in Guptipara, Hooghly went around collecting subscriptions from friends and neighbours to institute a Puja. This was called Barowari pujo – Baro for twelve and wari was a corrupted form of yari meaning friends. This Puja was open to general public, sarbojonin. Thus was born a Puja of the people, for the people, by the people. It became hugely popular. One reason was, it was a long-suppressed utterance of a proletarian self–expression.

In a large Police force like Kolkata Police, on any given day 15 – 20 % of the force is on leave and another 10 – 15 % are off due to ailments. But for some reason, during the Puja duties, not a single person goes on leave or reports sick. It is a matter of pride for them to be on duty during that one week.

Almost everything comes to a standstill. Or, more accurately, everything is imbued with a new life. It is the most beautiful time in the year for Bengalis, for anyone who has visited Bengal during the Pujas and for someone like me who went there as a stranger and calls it his home now. At least, the home cadre. When one gets up on the morning of Biswakarma Puja, the air feels different. Puja season starts. And lasts for a month, until Kali Pujo.