Kolkata by Durga Puja: Devi without, Devi within

October 2005

Puja festivities are at their peak making it an enchanting drive from the Kolkata airport to the city. Past 10 in the night and the air is filled with music, colour, lights, busy traffic, lots of pedestrians, Puja pandals (temporary enclosures) standing on both sides of roads. Even from a distance, this is unlike anything I have seen before. Soma, my local buddy, has warned me of crazy traffic. ‘Roads may be blocked and you may have to walk part of the way,’ she says. But it’s a smooth drive and the traffic not too bad for what is famous for Kolkata. At the Ramakrishna Mission Scholars hostel at Gol Park, heart of town, I am given a neat, functional room on the first floor overlooking a busy street.

People at home have sent me off with two credit cards, two cell phones. However, wonder of wonders, I find I cannot make a call from either. So I troop down to the street to become one with the crowds below. Close to 11 and it’s as busy as it can be with men, women, children, dressed in their best, walking with a purpose in their step. Buses are running, foodstalls doing brisk business. Calls over, as I head back I feel happy and safe, easily merging in the crowds to become unnoticeable. This is a remarkably welcoming and inclusive feeling – as though the streets are ours and each one of us has an equal right to be here and celebrate the coming of the Devi. Back home, people had said the eastern part of the country shows greater respect for women probably because they worship the mother goddess. Whatever be the reason, this Delhiite is pleasantly surprised at the contrast. No ‘question mark looks’ – who are you, why are you here, whom are you with. Back in my room I watch the street for a while from my first floor window. It is past one by the time I knock off, lulled to sleep by the sound of traffic.

There is such immense energy in this festival and the Bengalis are famous for celebrating with true gusto. Through the five days of Puja, the city is on holiday with markets and offices shut. People make time out once a year to set work aside, celebrate the presence of the Devi among them. Now I know why the Bengali colleague must always take off on Puja – truly, who can stay away from a celebration and family reunion such as this. A community festival, it includes everyone – even the ‘wanderer’ like me feels included – unlike Diwali in the north, which is essentially a family festival.

The enthusiasm of the festival is infectious and over the next few days I roam the streets eager to soak in more. If travel abroad makes us cling to precious pounds and francs, in India it does the opposite. Suddenly, as though buying power increases multifold. The needle and thread for Rs 3 at Ganeshpuri the previous week was the minimum value thing I had purchased in a long while. Until the chai in Kolkata – a tiny little mitti (clay) cup for Rs 1.50. Two cups, total cost Rs 3. Looking for tea one afternoon, I walked down the street hoping I would find a Café Coffee Day or a Barista. Markets and shops shut, I found a cyber café, but no café. Just the bustling pavement chaishops. Back in the north, perhaps not the done thing to do, but here, I stopped at a teashop run by two women. Mother and daughter? Or mother-in-law, daughter-in-law possibly. The young woman, around 25, looked a smart entrepreneur. Sipping excellent tea by the road I notice the pedestrian is king: Roads have been blocked to make way for people as they go socializing, pandal hopping. There is the sizzle of streetfood – egg roll, mutton roll, egg pakoda (cutlet) and all the rest of it, there are the namkeen (savoury) sellers and the fruit sellers – a kharbooja (melon) that looks like a big kheera (cucumber).

A small-frame girl, about 25, approaches me with great dignity and sells me a booklet on Subhash Chandra Bose. First I thought – the Church types. In Delhi, not uncommon to be approached by smart young women at bus stops and markets handing out pamphlet-invitations for a church programme. I stopped because I was wandering anyway. A wanderer has an open mind and an open heart – who knows what will lead to what. The woman said she works with a publishing house that publishes cheap-priced books on national leaders, regional writers specially aimed at young people. Also on offer are books by Hindi writer Premchand.

Heartwarming to notice the economically active role young women play on Kolkata’s streets – certainly unusual to the North Indian eye. This naturally implies an atmosphere of respect and well-being for women. I recall a friend with disability once telling me how as a 20-year-old she left home to live by herself for a year in Kolkata posing as a widow. “In Bengal, they let you be,” she said. The worship of the mother goddess translates in respect for women and even if it is superficial, at least there is less of the blatant violation one sees at many of the other places. Women are empowered here – even women in sex work, the lowest rung of the social ladder, have organised themselves into a collective conscious of rights and dignity. Sonagachi, Kolkata’s redlight area, and possibly South Asia’s largest, is often cited as a remarkable sex workers’ collective with few other parallels. Perhaps there’s a reason it could only happen in Kolkata.

Everywhere, the Devi looks awesome – majestic, compassionate, bejewelled. Sunita and family, wonderful Kolkatan friends, take me pandal hopping one night. One pandal is a replica of an Orissan temple, another on yoga and meditation is designed like a cave. Exhibition design of a unique kind. So much effort goes into creating each pandal, it is difficult to imagine it is just for a few days. Living art as worship at its best. The impermanence of the art lends it a prayer-like quality. Like the floor patterns rangoli and the kollam cleaned away each morning and made afresh, the Devi will be immersed, the pandal dismantled and made new next year. Preparations will begin almost six months in advance. The Bengali believes during this time Durga descends on earth. The priest does the prana pratishtha and the clay idol becomes infused with the soul of the Devi. Towards the end of the festival the soul is released, the idol becomes a doll, and is immersed in the river. Until next year, when She will come again.

This year, Puja, normally lasting 4-5 days, is condensed into three. The Bengalis look determined to pack the three days with high intensity. The street by night continues to hold attention and I feel like a Maya Memsaab peering down from my first floor window. The immersion processions begin, leading the idol are men – beating drums, playing the clappers, waving the dhoop (incense). The power of the drum beat is unlike anything I have heard before. I am mesmerized.

The Navratri (festival of nine nights) is a very sacred time, more so for women. We are honouring the feminine force, Prakriti; in doing so, we honour our own divinity and feminity. The nature of the Devi is compassion, beauty, victory, pride. All these virtues so very empowering that it leaves no space to feel weak or ‘powerless’ in any way. Whether it is Western India – Gujarat and Maharashtra – or the east – West Bengal, Orissa, Assam – Navratri is that time awesome time of the year when the streets and colonies will sport a renewed exuberance. The weather turns pleasant with approaching winter, homes are whitewashed clean, newness in the air with new clothes and new leaves. The Devi is a 30-ish woman I would say – youthful, mother, attractive, buoyant. I am that age so it makes me feel good about who I am. All the mid-30s blues vanish.

Walking down a Kolkata street I notice despite the apparent ‘loudness’ of colour, music, lights, people seem indrawn. With a city immersed in a celebration of the coming of the goddess, the district administration is geared up: Roads have been blocked to make way for pandals and processions, there is police and traffic police on duty, public transport running until late in the night.

To be in Kolkata for Puja is to dance in the glory of the divine feminine power within and without. And become one with it.
‘Every culture is an experiment’

The International Scholars Hostel at the Ramakrishna Mission is full with students from all over the world. I hear someone practicing on the tabla in the room nextdoor – it’s the 30-ish Japanese girl. Given that tabla has been such a male reserve in our tradition, her interest intrigues me. A student of South Asian studies from Tokyo, she is learning the tabla and is also studying painting at the College of Art. Before coming to Kolkata, she spent an year in Karachi, speaks fluent Urdu, says her Hindi is better than her English. Karachi was very different from here, she says, “You could not wear western clothes and it was very repressed for women.”

The Romanian girls are lighthearted, energetic, have a great sense of humour. Dana, who has been in Kolkata eight years, says, “You must go to Shantinketan.” “Her birthplace,” chimes in her fellow countrywoman Ramona, who has ‘just arrived’ – five months back. Dana has been in India 11 years, the first three she spent at Shantinekatan. When she arrived she could speak fluent Bangla and Sanskrit. A student of Sanskrit philosophy at Jadavpur University, she has done comparative study of Sanskrit with the ancient European languages, has translated the Upanishads into Romanian. A Japanese young man is here to learn Bengali language so he can better understand the villages in Bengal. Many Japanese researchers are interested in Bengali culture, he says. A young boy from Delhi suburb Noida is here to study an MBA. Trust the north Indians to gang up: People in Kolkata are very nosey, he tells me.

With characteristic gracefulness the Japanese man wished me a great journey: “I hope you have a great trip, I know you will – you have very curious eyes,” he said. The students inspire me to open my eyes to the world, look at the buffet spread on offer, choose what I would like to ruminate on. Young people who have left their homes and families and come to a far-off land to study. Some, who have been here more than a decade, have made this their home. A traveler is one who comes out of his comfort zone trusting the journey will reveal new understandings.

The Ramakrishna Mission is very inclusive of different cultures. Swami Ranganathananda writes, “No culture in the world is perfect. Each culture is just an experiment in culture so we have to learn from each other.” For us to benefit from this assimilation of cultures, it becomes even more important then, for us to know our own. Pico Iyer writes, the ‘global soul’ has become the ‘mongrel soul’. It only reinforces the need to know my own better. Only then can we give better, and hence receive better.

More than ever before, I am inspired to study, learn, adopt, absorb, be respectful of different cultures and communities. I begin to understand why Swami Ranganathananda said this cross-cultural fertilization becomes so very important in today’s times. I think of the evidently Muslim banglesellers in the lanes around Charminar in Hyderabad and remember thinking then how much they have added to the beauty of this land. Travellers’ long-lasting influence is evident in food traditions too: The Muslims brought with them the jalebi, the naan came to us via the North-West. And until the Portuguese arrived, we did not know yeast and fermented bread.

Pilgrim traveler

Sunita and Vinodji take me to the Kalighat temple one morning. A wonderful 40-something couple I first met in the Ganeshpuri ashram a decade ago, they are light-hearted, good-humoured and very affectionate. The sturdy Punjabi spirit! Sunita heads the Punjabi division at the National Library, Vinodji is a forensic scientist. One daughter is an ace interior designer working in Pune, the second is studying fashion design in Kolkata. A family that has made Kolkata its home for over twenty years, they say they love the simplicity of the place and its people. Needless to say, they all speak fluent Bangla. Rice is my staple, says daughter Sneha.

We go to the Kalighat temple with a police escort and so we get ‘instant darshan’. Suddenly we see ourselves in front of the magnificent idol, so close, we could touch but could not see it in its entirety. I understood why a temple is designed the way it is: You enter, you approach, you bow – the time and space allows us to prepare to receive darshan of the idol**. Vinodoji showed us the place where the bali is done. A little enclosure with bamboos – to tie the goat I guess. Gives me a shudder. Death to the animal is victory to the devotee? To kill the most gentle animal, tied, can hardly be called bravery. Vinodji tells us that in the pandals also the bali is done symbolically with a white pumpkin. Few temples where the animal bali tradition has been allowed to continue – most other places it has been banned thanks to animal rights activists. I am reminded of a cousin who as a schoolgirl told me she saw a television programme on animal sacrifice at Kamakhya temple, Guwahati, and turned vegetarian for good.

We hire a car one day and Soma takes me to Belur Math and Dakshineswar, an hour’s drive away. A former journalist colleague from Pioneer, Soma is an avid reader, film and television critic. A single woman in her 40s, she lives with her parents, does freelance writing assignments and is researching a novel set in the Mughal period.

Belur Math, which is the global headquarters of the Ramakrishna Movement, has its main temple dedicated to Ramakrishna Paramhansa. The temple façade draws symbols from the different major religions of the world. Just by the Ganga, the Belur Math has the silence of maun darshan in Gurudev Siddha Peeth. There are people, music, sounds, but no conversation. In the complete silence we honour something and someone. Silence takes us inward so quickly. To be silent is to quieten the chatter of the mind. Not for anything it has been said, for the heart to listen to God, it must be in silence.
The Belur museum is a labour of love. We walk around it on the outside to see history of India down the ages depicted through relief sculptures. On the inside, the museum tells of the history of the Ramakrishna movement, recreates the past, and showcases original artefacts. It leaves me completely inspired – not just by the greatness of the movement but also the pride with which the story has been told. Very rare to see museums and exhibitions so well conceived and implemented. There is an entrance fee of Rs 3: Small enough to ensure access to all, prevent hangers-on.

The next evening I am at the Belur Math again, this time thanks to Dana. There is time for the evening Arti, she needs to use the toilet so I proceed to sit by the banks of the Ganga. As a full moon rises over the water, I chant the mantra Om Namah Shivaya silently to myself. Families on the steps are doing the regular touristy stuff like taking pictures. Some men, even old women are taking a dip. Our India – so special, so beautiful. The Jnaneshwar Maharaj quote comes to mind – Jahan vichar thama jaate hain, jahan buddhi kaam nahi aati, use jnana kehte hain. ‘That space where no thoughts remain, where intellect loses all meaning, is called knowledge.’

My great good fortune to witness this perfection of the elements coming together – sacred land, water, time of dusk, time of prayer. Only the fire element is missing – to be completed by the Arti. The evening Arti is awesome. Ramakrishna has stressed a lot on the power of spiritual music. It is the time when all the monks and students will come together to chant the Arti. I am glad I am here with a friend.

Travel is about recognition

Soma, my proud Bengali host, takes me around town. At the Academy of Fine Arts, I am delighted to find the kadamba tree – something I have been searching for years. The tree has an intoxicating fragrance and a majestic form in the way it branches out. The flower is a bright yellow sphere, bigger than the table-tennis ball. Outside the St Paul’s Church, I find something similar to the molshree tree – tall and wide tree with red berries.

The trees take me to childhood memories of the Arts College in Lucknow where I grew up. The campus with its Tagore statue, the ‘Thinker’ statue, kadamba and molshree trees. I think of the young men and women who would have graduated from Kolkata Arts College and Shantinekatan, even IIT Kharagpur, like my Dad, and moved to the Lucknow Arts College in the ’60s. They planted the trees they knew and loved, created sculptures of their master. People who had studied under the masters, some direct students of Tagore.

Mrs Pawar, our septagenarian artist in Lucknow, who also graduated from Shantiniketan spoke of the artist Nandalal Bose who would always carry pen and paper so he could pause and make a sketch when he saw something beautiful. To do this is, ‘nature ko pranam karna’, he would say. Mrs Pawar was also my window to the art of batik – a Shantiniketan trademark. Being here, I understand how much Bengali culture influenced my father who studied here fifty years ago. His gentle and peace loving demeanour, love for nature, immense contentment that can be mistaken for complacency, surely comes from here. This is also where I got my name – Dad named me after a professor!

It strikes me that travel is about recognizing. In Kolkata, I recognize the trees I have known as a child; recognize the silence at Belur similar to Gurudev Siddha Peeth. And what does it make me feel – the joy of seeing a familiar face where one least expects it. Or perhaps the joy of meeting family we have not met before – as though we are connected and our destinies are inter-linked in some mysterious way.

On the way back in the bus from Belur late evening, I ask Dana if she misses home and she says yes, sometimes, specially on birthdays and festivals. ‘My father always encouraged me, he loved cultures. Now that he has passed away my mother wants me to come back,’ she said. Suddenly, she decides to take me for a metro ride – true Kolkatan host in a show-off mood. Once again she leads the way, buys the tickets. The ticket-seller is amused – people go into shock when they see a European speaking Bangla. She tells them she is an Indian – a Bengali! And they are so confused, not so sure if what appears is, so they want to know if me, the person who looks Indian and is trailing the European, is an Indian or a foreigner!

Eternal Values

For over a century, the Ramakrishna Mission’s contribution to education and health has been immense, not to mention disaster management. Be it flood, earthquake, tsunami – any calamity in the country and they are the first to respond. As a voluntary organization their credibility is unparalleled. Dana opens doors for me in more ways than one and I get to speak with the head monk at the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture.

What makes institutions last over people’s lifetimes, I ask the 60-something Secretary of the Mission in Kolkata. He says, Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Sri Aurobindo were contemporaries of Swami Vivekananda who started movements around the same time. Yet, the rest are either completely forgotten or pale shadows of their former glory. ‘To be service-oriented and have a mission larger than individual liberation; to come together under a code of conduct with strict discipline, have been the hallmark of this Mission,’ he said. Swami Vivekananda said religion must not be
mixed with politics, it is a misuse of both. Therefore, the Mission is completely apolitical, always, the monk said. Speaking on how they choose men to be part of the order, he said their training is of at least nine years, people must have certain educational qualifications, celibacy is a requisite. All monastic members have training in relief rehabiliation. ‘Exposure to reality is very important – coping with human distress becomes the starting point on how to serve.’

Cuisine critic

Kolkata was relishing exotic banana flowers, the bitter Shukto and what a range of sweets, every second shop being a sweet shop. ‘It’s something to do with climate, we ourselves find we eat so many sweets here,’ Sunita says. The bhaji – some deep fried thing is a constant. Bengalis are essentially non-vegetarian and I can smell fish and eggs in everything I eat – same oil and all that. Rice remains the staple. The chutneys were really nice – the mango chutney specially tongue tickling. First place I’m seeing a range of chutneys on the menu, each priced. Soma says because this is an integral part of the meal, cooking it can take as much labour as a main dish. Soma took me for chat one day at the Gupta chat house – almost as good as our Lucknow King of Chat, I’d say. Sunita and Vinodji took me to a chai shop one morning – Sharma Chai House that had on offer some hundred kinds of chai. We enjoyed a ‘bada’ kulhad’ of nice rich milky saffron tea. And then, one evening we gorged on the Chinese samosa with noodle filling, in a popular city mall. The Chinese have contributed much to Kolkata culture. Chinatown, where families have lived for generations, has a number of small restaurants. Apparently, many of them are run by families who open their drawing rooms to double-up as restaurants. Authentic Chinese food on offer here. A community that first came here as traders and merchants along with the Arabs a couple of centuries ago, they are also Kolkata’s famous shoemakers.

Kodak moment
Soma and I do the Victoria one day. It’s a beautiful building. It’s the day our tour to Sunderbans was cancelled due to bad weather so we are carrying our backpacks. We cannot take the bags inside, we are told, and there is no place to deposit them. Man at the entry suggests we go in one at a time, one person guarding the bags outside. That is undoubtedly an extremely dumb option but groups are doing that for lack of choice. We head to the lawns – extremely well maintained – and join the lovers on the benches at 11 am. It begins to rain, so our umbrellas come out. We are well-geared. This must make such a funny picture – rain, lawns, umbrella, garden bench, the awesome Victoria for background – I beg Soma to let me take a pic, she says No. We dig into our picnic basket intended for Sunderbans. Finally, we must go to Sunita’s office close by so we can keep our bags safe and soak in the history at Victoria.

The magnificent collection of artefacts, sketches and oils, portraits, sculpture is a remarkable window into British India and the freedom struggle. But what really stayed with me is the letter Tagore wrote to the Viceroy declining knighthood in protest against the Jallianwala killings. I have seen this before at an extremely moving exhibition at Jallianwala, Amritsar, a couple of years ago on Baisakhi day, the anniversary of the massacre. Somehow, here, to be able to read the letter almost for real has a very moving impact.