The idol of Goddess Durga standing tall, mesmerizingly beautiful epitomising the divine, the sweet scent of flowers, pure and heavenly, burning incense, dhol-beats, children and grownups alike dancing with burning coconut coir in a clay pot, the crowd dressed in finery, mouth-watering dishes, pandal hopping with family and friends, wonderfully decorated lights and music – yes these are some of the memories of Durga Puja that keep coming back to me every year around this time. These are the scenes that play out when I close my eyes and think about Durga Puja. Yes, four days of a year, every year, life would become a grand celebration when Maa came visiting us in autumn. But since the time I started living in a hostel everything related to the Puja became a distant dream. No matter how hard I tried, it seemed to slip away from me, further and further away.

New and fancy clothes, that too at least two for each day of the festival and special sojourns to the market just to buy shoes, yes these were the little joys in the guise of shopping sprees with lunches for the entire family and they started way before the heavenly fiesta did. However, the excitement and the holidays sadly are now a thing of the past.

Growing up may have its own perks but it also often takes us to a place where we need to let go of a lot of things close to our hearts. It begins with studies, college or exams then comes the all-important cycle of earning a living and then marriage, then kids and all the yada yada yada that comes with having a kid when somewhere down the line a lot of things get phased out.

If I was still a child at my mother’s place with just a few weeks left before the Durga Puja, I would be looking forward in anticipation to weekends to pay visits to the tailor’s or just go shopping with Mom. I would be looking forward to a few days where it would all be about my kith and kin. I would be counting the dresses that I would have bought so far. My sister and I would be especially choosing hair bands and matching accessories. All in all, it would have been a time of fervour and enjoyment. But life goes on and we are grown-ups now, have been so for a long while now that the past seems to belong to someone else’s life.

Durga Puja during COVID. Durga Puja during a pandemic. A Bengali reminisces, ponders and tries to conjure the Durga Puja of her past while missing it during this Pandemic. #Bengali #DurgaPuja Share on X

Sometimes it makes me wonder how our parents did it. How did they manage every aspect of life so superbly, be it personal or the career? How did they get the time for family and a life beyond the office? Today if we try to take care of one the other suffers. It makes me wonder if life, as we know it today, remains just a mere formality or convention where real joys don’t figure at all.

When I started working, I missed out on the celebrations almost every single year. There were either no vacation days left or there were no leaves available. Only for the last 4 years ever since my daughter was born, I made it a point to go home for Pujas. If not for anything else then to show her what this festival was and always has been to her mother for most of her life. I wanted her to see what I had grown up seeing because I couldn’t do that for her alone out here in Bangalore. Raising her in a bilingual family, I needed to take her to ground zero of my Bengali upbringing so to speak. I needed her to be with her grandparents, be amid the Bengali diaspora I had been part of in the distant part of North-Eastern India. And to my surprise, it worked. It worked so well. Today, my daughter loves this celebration that Bengalis all over the world wait for with baited breathe and I love that. Somewhere along with her, I rediscovered the zeal I had lost in the years between I first left home to study and when I moved further away for work. 

But this year the joy of Durga Puja has been snatched away by the pandemic. Durga Puja in the Covid era means not being able to go to my parents, not being able to take my daughter to a place, a celebration she had grown to love. When I see her asking my dad to send her a picture of Maa Durga every day, I realise that she too is missing it in a way I used to once upon a time. I realise what has been taken away from our children and our elders this year, the comfort of what was once normal, the comfort of getting together with family living far away for most of the year, the rituals and the revelries. 

This year there were no shopping sprees, no new clothes or matching accessories. There were no tickets booked to fly home. This year there were no sarees bought or suits stitched. This year there were very few idols made. This year the pandals, those few erected, wear a deserted look. This year the dhak misses the crowd. This year we miss being in the presence of Maa Durga. This year the stages across cities miss the dhinuchi and the dramas. This year fewer love stories would perhaps be born like the many that stared in the past in those crowded pandals. This year the bhog will perhaps not reach all. This year many daughters won’t go home like it is said Maa Durga does during Durga Puja every year. The Bengalis will miss it all. I will miss is so fervently because the truth is you can take a Bengali away from Durga Puja but you cannot take the love for it out of a Bengali. Never in a million years.

However, I also realise that sometimes the celebration of faith, of traditions also means making peace with the knowledge that your loved ones are safe. Far yes, but safe too. Also, knowing that the celebration, if not grand, can also mean time spent well with family at home and being safe. This year as we have a muted celebration, I think it’s only fair to grateful for all that we have, knowing that when this is over, this festival will be observed again with renewed fervour. 

You can take a Bengali away from Durga Puja but you cannot take the love for it out of a Bengali.

Durga Puja during COVID. Durga Puja during a pandemic. Durga Puja with masks. Who would have thought, right? In March this year, I thought this nightmare of a pandemic would be over in a month or maybe two. I remember telling my friend from work that we perhaps might not meet each other till June this year. That was in April and June felt to be so far down the line that everything would be fine till then. It had to be I naively believed then. Now we are nearing the end of this year. Just goes to show how you never know what the future holds. One can only hope because that’s probably the easiest thing in our control.

On this Navami Day, I leave you with this thought of another Durga Puja in the future where our festivities won’t be held hostage by a pandemic.

I know not how to get back the past,

For what is gone does never return.

The memories that within me do last,

Ensure I never cease to yearn.

But one day in the future I sure must,

The lost happiness in my heart upturn.