Childhood memories of Druga puja
When I was growing up in Old Dhaka, Durga Puja came into our lives with the easy familiarity of something that had always been there. At a certain time of year, the neighbourhood would be celebrating, and we would find ourselves wandering into the festivities. There was rarely a grand plan. Puja was part of the world we inhabited, and we joined in with the unselfconscious pleasure of children who knew there was something lovely happening nearby.
One of my clearest memories is of Narishikha School, near my nani bari, my maternal grandmother’s home. The school shared a boundary wall with my aunt’s house, and when Puja was held there, we would simply cross over to watch. Such a small journey, yet it held all the excitement we needed. We could enjoy ourselves for a while and return to the familiar world on the other side. At that age, we had no particular language for religious harmony; we only knew that a celebration was within reach. Fortunately, childhood does not always insist on using the front gate.
As childhood gave way to my teenage years, the circle of those Puja outings slowly widened. Alongside our little neighbourhood adventures came opportunities to go further, with the grown-ups making arrangements and a day’s visiting planned ahead. I remember one Puja when my uncle, who was the Education Secretary at the time, took us along to mandaps around Dhamrai, Savar and other parts of the Dhaka region. He was visiting to see that the celebrations were being held properly, while we had the pleasure of accompanying him from one place to another. Puja was becoming a way of discovering places beyond our own neighbourhood, each with its own gathering of people and its own share of the season’s happiness.
Mirzapur Durga Puja
Other years brought other associations, until certain homes and people became inseparable from my Puja memories. During the years we lived in our Green Road house, I had the pleasure of going to Mirzapur with Ranju Hashim aunty and Anwar Hashim uncle, to the celebrations associated with Kumudini and the home of Ranada Prasad Shaha. Those visits opened another door into the festival for me, bringing me close to a tradition with a long and generous history. Kumudini’s own account dates Shaha’s grand Durga Puja celebrations there to 1942, a history that gives the gathering the warmth of something lovingly carried forward through generations.
What I remember especially is the spirit the Bharateswari Homes students bring to the occasion. Their dancing, singing and kirtan give the celebrations such life. There is something touching about watching young people take their place in a tradition older than themselves, filling it with their own voices and enthusiasm. In Mirzapur, Puja feels like an annual gathering around a shared inheritance, renewed through the people who return and the girls who help make it so memorable. Having experienced it in such affectionate company, I carry a particular fondness for it.
Perhaps it was through these visits, accumulating almost unnoticed, that my attachment deepened. I cannot say exactly when Durga Puja became something I actively looked forward to, but somewhere along the way, I began to make room for it in the year. Today, I try to visit as many Dhaka mandaps as I can: Banani, Jagannath Hall, Dhakeshwari Mandir, and the stretch from Tanti Bazar to Shankhari Bazar. In those old neighbourhoods, the enjoyment of the present sits very close to childhood memory. My cousins and friends share the same enthusiasm, so these outings have become an easy, happy understanding between us. Every year, we find our way back.
Durga puja and Mahishasuramardini
With that growing affection, I also began to discover parts of the season that had not belonged to my childhood. My husband who is a big fan of Birendra Krishna Bhadra, his recitation in Mahishasuramardini was one such discovery. I came to it later in life, drawn to the depth of his voice and the way the words seem to give autumn a presence of its own. Today, on Mahalaya, 10 October, I find myself returning to those beautiful opening lines:
আশ্বিনের শারদপ্রাতে বেজে উঠেছে আলোক-মঞ্জীর;
ধরণীর বহিরাকাশে অন্তরিত মেঘমালা;
প্রকৃতির অন্তরাকাশে জাগরিত জ্যোতির্ময়ী জগন্মাতার আগমন বার্তা।
I love listening to the language unfold, allowing its cadence to linger. A tradition need not have been with us since childhood to become dear to us; sometimes affection arrives later, and quietly makes itself at home. Perhaps that is also how Puja found its way into my kitchen. Over the last ten or fifteen years, I have begun making naru, preparing luchi and alur dum, and sharing them as my own small way of celebrating. These are customs I have chosen with pleasure, until they, too, have become part of what I look forward to each year.
Cooking has always been a natural way for me to express affection, and I enjoy both the making and the giving. There is a particular sweetness in preparing food because other people are celebrating, in letting their happiness shape the meal in your own home. The naru I share carries that feeling with it. Through these familiar foods, friendship and religious solidarity become something we can offer one another across a table, with all the warmth and informality that sharing food allows.
That same delight draws me into the colour and laughter of sindur khela. I enjoy participating, with affection for the women around me and respect for the meaning the ritual holds for them. I am not Hindu, and Durga Puja has a sacred significance for its worshippers that I do not claim as my own. Yet it has become a cherished part of my life. We can remain rooted in our own beliefs while taking pleasure in one another’s celebrations; for me, that has always felt a natural way to live among people I love.
This Mahalaya, my thoughts return to that wall beside my aunt’s house, and to how little it took for us to cross over into someone else’s happiness. I hope the children growing up around us will inherit that same ease, carrying their own Durga Puja memories into adulthood. Perhaps, years from now, they too will remember a nearby celebration that slowly became a lifelong affection, and the people who made them feel welcome there.
