Bengal bid adieu to Mother Durga with a heavy heart on the Vijaya Dashami day even as the 10-day annual festivities concluded on Wednesday.
Thousands of idols of the Mother Goddess were immersed in the Ganges and other rivers with many thousands of devotees queuing up by the Hooghly River in Kolkata to watch the final moments of the Mother's send-off ceremony.
Durga --- a reincarnation of Parvati the wife of Lord Shiva --- is worshipped and loved as a 'daughter' in Bengal. Legend has it that the Mother comes every year to her parents' place on earth and after 10 days returns to Kailash the abode of Shiva.
"This is one day when the devotees are a tad unhappy with Shiva because he takes away our daughter," says one of the organisers adding "we will again have to wait for a full one year."
Congratulating the people of Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said, "though we feel bad about the mother going back ... If fact she resides within us ... and we must try to feel her presence every moment."
Apparently to ward off the gloom devotees, particularly the saree-clad married women engage in Sindoor khela.
They smear each other with red vermilion after offering the same sindoor or vermilion at the feet of the Mother praying for the wellbeing of their near and dear ones. This is accompanied by group dance to the beats of Dhak or drum.
Else at Taki in Indo-Bangladesh border the people of two countries assemble in thousands on the opposite banks of Ichamati river that serves as the international border.
On Wednesday too hundreds of idols from both sides of the border at Taki in North 24 Parganas were immersed in presence of thousands of spectators.
Incidentally former Army chief General Shankar Roy Chowdhury and former Union Law Minister Ashok Sen hailed from Taki.
"The imersiion process at the international border is a spectacle to watch...and has the potential to become an international tourism event much like the one at Wahaj border but with a different mood ambience... We hope the governments take a note of this," said one of the organisers.