Durga Puja 2016

This is for those who couldn't be in Kolkata or Bangla during the biggest celebration ever in Bangla.
I started my puja parikrama from today i.e Mahasaptami coz well, i had to pop into office on Mahasashthi. I am not a fan of roaming around at night coz people kinda get crazy at that time and it becomes super difficult to visit any of the pandals. So, we decided to go out in the morning. Here it goes.

For the first day, I chose to start with one of the oldest and most traditional of durga pujas. So we took an Uber and reached Bagbazar Sarbojonin.

Bagbazar Sarbojonin

Before we entered Bagbazar Sarbojonin, we took a little detour and visited Mayer Bari, which is one of the buildings maintained by Ramkrishna Mission. Thakur Ramkrishnadeb along with Maa Sarada had spent some time here during his illness. Here's an image of the room Thakur occupied during his stay.

We walked a little along a side lane and reached Bagbazar Sarbojonin. And as always, Maa appeared in front of us in an age old graceful form.

As we came outside the mandap to have our breakfast from one of those little roadside cafes we saw these processions, one of them from Sovabazar Rajbari, I surmised.

Kumartuli Sarbijonin

Next stop was Kumartuli Sarbojonin. This year’s theme is the inside of Lotus flower. Maa is sitting inside a Lotus flower with 3D holograms of more of the flowers floating. Here’s a pic.

The pandal needs to be visited at night, mainly because its decorated mostly with LEDs, which I am guessing when turned on at night would really give the intended look.

While coming back, we couldn’t resist visiting the place where the amazing work of arts are created, and as expected, hoards of photographers were thronging the place. We roamed around and took a few snaps of the unfinished idols at the workshops of Kumartuli.

Sovabazar Rajbari Thakurdalan

The Thakurdalan, which is opposite of the actual Rajbari has a wide courtyard and long verandas running alongside the garden leading the path upto the Thakurdalan. Maa is in traditional attire here, much like Bagbazar.

Sovabazar Rajbari

Situated just opposite of Thakurdalan, the actual Rajbari where the descendants of the royal family still reside and resides GovindJiu, has their own Durga Puja. By Maa’ grace, we were lucky enough to have reached at the exact moment Maha Saptami’s Anjali started.

Sovabajar Beniatola

Swathed in royal blue and simple white depicting Lord Ganesha driving a chariot, Maa has a sweet demeanor here.

Ahiritola Sarbojonin

As always, Ahiritola aims to create something very artistic. Following, though I’m not sure, but I think they tried to recreate the studio of a modern artist or maybe kumartuli itself. The effect was really good, I liked it though I did hear many a grumblings about the very artistic durga idol. For me, it was like one of those Durga murtis you see in ancient temples, of kostipathor. Maa is in blak and red here.

Sribhumi

By popular demand, our last stop had to be Sribhumi, which has continued its tradition of generating buzz, this year with its imitation of Jagannath Temple in Puri. Maa is always gorgeous here, more so with the real gold jewelries, as every year.

This was our Saptami tour, we covered only the must see pandals of North Kolkata. Stay tuned for more.