{"id":3477,"date":"2016-04-10T17:45:53","date_gmt":"2016-04-10T12:15:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3477"},"modified":"2016-04-10T17:45:53","modified_gmt":"2016-04-10T12:15:53","slug":"durga-puja-childhood-bengali-adult","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=3477","title":{"rendered":"My Favourite Part of Durga Puja? Remembering the Pujos of My Childhood"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

L<\/span><\/p><\/div>

ast week, as I listened to the glorious baritone of <\/span>Birendra Krishna Bhadra <\/span><\/a>on Mahalaya morning, my lungs took in a giant whiff of Durga Puja that was barely days away. Along with the lilting tunes of Mahishasur Mardini, came all the beautiful memories of Durga Pujos past.<\/span>\n\nI was reminded of the autumn of 1994, when I was a class IV <\/span>student<\/span><\/a>, giddy with joy. My piggy bank that I had been devotedly filling every single day of the year had just been broken and I had counted \u20b980 \u2013 all in coins, save a lonely \u20b910 note. If you\u2019re a Bong, you know what this meant: One egg roll every day of Pujo. For a little kid, living under the aegis of well-meaning but strict <\/span>parents<\/span><\/a>, this was no mean feat. It meant that only I got to decide when I would devour that egg roll and where (in which pandal, to be more accurate) I\u2019d buy it, with zero parental intrusion. It was the Durga Pujo (and the independence) of my dreams.<\/span>\n\nThe year after this, Durga Pujo came with added aspirational responsibilities \u2013 the kind every kid willingly volunteers for. I was a part of the fruit-cutting department of the Pujo committee my <\/span>family<\/span><\/a> was a part of. It meant waking up at 6 am but since it wasn\u2019t for school, I didn\u2019t actually resent my lack of sleep. Instead I bathed willingly, proudly hung the big rectangular ID card that said \u201cVolunteer\u201d on my neck, and joined the group of tiny troopers who were as enthusiastic as me to cut apples and pears in neat pieces and put in transparent packets to be distributed as prasad. We giggled and felt mighty important because in a few hours, several hundreds of devotees would be munching on these fruits cut by us. Our new reputation also guaranteed that we\u2019d brag about our volunteer clout to any <\/span>neighbourhood<\/span><\/a> kid by entering and exiting the Pujo pandal from a special entrance in front of them. In that moment, we were invincible.<\/span>\n\nThe following Pujo season, I was bestowed the honour of choosing some of my new Pujo clothes \u2013 it\u2019s a different story altogether that I chose incredibly unwisely. But for that one beautiful Ashtami morning, my purple corduroy pants paired by me with a yellow top, handsomely offset a boy\u2019s red shirt with an equally red pair of trousers. Both of us were so thrilled with our wardrobe independence that we totally disregarded our elder siblings mercilessly laughing at us for looking like hybrid <\/span>animal<\/span><\/a> babies.<\/span>\n\nAs the years passed, the great <\/span>Bengali<\/span><\/a> festival kept getting bigger for tiny me \u2013 every year brought along a freedom of a new kind. By the time I was a teenager, I insisted on being out all morning and noon with my friends, braving the sun as we <\/span>pandal-hopped<\/span><\/a> at that horrible sinus-inducing hour. I experimented with applying generous amounts of kohl in my eyes, tried the many maroon lipsticks from Ma\u2019s cabinet, wore purple mini skirts, orange dungarees, and even a handloom saree that made me look like a Horlicks jar. <\/span>\n\n\n

Ironically enough, what we yearned to do as teenagers every Pujo, are the things we are weary of as adults.<\/p><\/blockquote> \n\nDuring the later years, <\/span>Durga Pujo<\/span><\/a> was the time when the foodie in me was finding its voice. I would spend all the money that I got from teaching English on the delicacies served up by mashis during \u201cAnandamela\u201d, a Bengali cook-off. From papda maacher jhol and ghugni to dimer devil and chowmein, I quite literally ate my heart out, realising that the five days of Pujo afforded me the leeway to get to know a part of myself, every year.<\/span>\n\nAnd then, it was in the early twenties that Durga Pujo became what many Calcuttans call a \u201clove fest\u201d. I was a part of a big <\/span>friends<\/span><\/a> group with love interests all around. I stopped wearing Ma-certified clothes altogether; my Pujo style wasn\u2019t just a sub-plot of my life, it now defined me as a person. Finally allowed to stay out late, I went to legendary pandals in a friend\u2019s broken Maruti 800 and indulged in addas till 2 am, coming home to sleep for only four hours before the next day\u2019s rituals began. <\/span>\n\nBut then age caught up with my favourite festival. I grew up, became an adult, and Durga Pujo kind of lost its sheen. It\u2019s still a <\/span>festival<\/span><\/a> I celebrate, but is hardly a celebration.<\/span>\n\nNow, as I now frantically book tickets to be with my family during Pujo as a well-heeled adult, I also race against deadlines, order new clothes online and figure mentally which of these will be my #OOTD for Nobomi. Ironically enough, what we yearned to do as teenagers every Pujo, are the things we are weary of as adults. The desire to be a grown up, to have money of our own, or be acknowledged as more than just the kid of that Bengali <\/span>family<\/span><\/a>, are the very things that we no longer look forward to.<\/span>\n\nI\u2019ve come to realise that adulting compromises the novelty of Pujo. We pay for most things we want because of the jobs we have, we order from food apps on all days of the week. We meet our friends at any hour of the day and no part of the city is off limits. <\/span>Pub hopping<\/span><\/a>, night outs, weekend getaways, we do it all. What was once only possible during Durga Pujo is now what we simply do, every day of the year. Our real permissions today are the holidays we request from our bosses to visit our hometowns, the headache of ensuring same-day deliveries of clothes bought online. And if you have kids, it\u2019s debatable whether you\u2019d actually end up enjoying a moment or two of this wonderful festival.<\/span>\n\nNaturally, in the last few years, I\u2019ve found myself wondering whether it\u2019s possible for Durga Pujo to mean so much to me as it once did. Will it ever feel less like a chore and more like a carefree gathering? It\u2019s a no-brainer that I will always celebrate Durga and her kids coming to town. But even now, reminiscing about the Pujo of my <\/span>childhood<\/span><\/a> is possibly my favourite Pujo activity as an adult.<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Growing up, Durga Pujo was all about garnering a shot of freedom, of carefree behaviour, every single year. But adulting compromises the novelty of Pujo. Now, as an adult, reminiscing about the Pujo of my childhood is possibly my favourite Pujo activity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":160,"featured_media":3478,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3452],"tags":[5101,1225,2447,6621,5318,3430,1726],"class_list":["post-3477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-adult","tag-childhood","tag-durga-puja","tag-elder-siblings","tag-festival","tag-indian","tag-parents"],"yoast_head":"\nMy Favourite Part of Durga Puja? Remembering the Pujos of My Childhood<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Growing up, Durga Pujo was all about garnering a shot of freedom, of carefree behaviour, every single year. 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