With “themes” once again inundating Durga Puja pandals in 2018, efforts are on to get the City of Joy declared as UNESCO’s City of Literature.
True, Kolkata has once again decked up to the inimitability of its Durga Puja pandals — with each of 3,000-odd Puja pandals exhibiting a creativity of the sublime class blended with abstract mysticism and temporal message.
Welcome to Chaltabagan Durga Puja committee in North Kolkata, where the organisers have set up their Puja Pandal around the theme of Poet Laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s Shantir Nir (Abode of Peace).” S Bhutoria, the chief patron of the Puja says, “We have woven our craft around this theme so that Kolkata can be enlisted as India’s first ‘City of Literature’ in the UNESCO list.”
World cities like Milan, Norwich, Edinburgh, Prague, Melbourne, Baghdad, Granada, Barcelona Dublin, Krakow, Heidelberg, Quebec etc have already been declared as cities of literature.
The artiste has conveyed Tagore’s message of universal peace and harmony through excellent display of motifs and reliefs. In an apparent bid to blend literary flavour with religiosity the ceiling of the pandal has been decorated with books.
Towards the North Eastern fringes at Sribhumi Sporting Club the Puja organisers have reproduced the gigantic pandal after Chittaurgarh Fort. The Theme here is Padmavat. The exclusive art work of the pandal will make it difficult to read between the original and the imitation.
The artist who constructed the Durga Puja pandal at Raja Santosh Mitra Square seems to have worked wonders by building a mammoth 60-feet tall Arjuna’s Rath. The specialty of the chariot is: it is plated with silver. “We have used about 10 tons of silver costing about Rs 40 crore; add another Rs 2 crore as construction cost,” said one of the organisers. “This Rath of Mother Goddess Durga aims at bringing rule of law, peace and justice on the earth,”
he said.
Down South at Ekdalia Evergreen Puja Committee, presided over by senior Minister Subroto M kherjee the pandal is shaped in classical pattern. “We have no deviation as we rely on heritage,” he says. So the entire set up is classical.” the temple structure is enormous, and beautifully crafted, while the inside is decorated by idols of gods and is stunningly colourful.
“I have not seen such a huge crowd for so many days. Gosh! It is stupendous” says Elei from the USA who has come to visit a friend in Kolkata.
A mile away at Tridhara Sanmilani which has been winning numerous prizes for its exquisite art work the organisers have concentrated on the traditional handicraft of Bengal. While artist Gauranga Quilla has used the traditional earthen potery as his theme he has given the finishing touch with jute. The minute art words and the finesse has led the Club to win more than three dozen prizes this year.
“Such exquisite is the artistry of the craftsmen that people not only from all over the State but all over the world have poured in to hop pandals 24x7,” says a Dy Commissioner of Police. “We are receiving about 7-8 million additional people walking throughout the day and night in Kolkata for the past several days and the figure is likely to cross one crore by Navami Day”, he added
Cut to Badamtala Ashar Sangha where the theme for this year’s puja is “shob choritro kalponic (all characters are fictional).” Even as they celebrate women this year an organiser said “in the modern world, there are numerous successful women, but there are those who are subjected to malice and hatred. The puja is dedicated to those women and is an ode to the spirit of womanhood.”