When the Goddess Arrives...

Durga Puja is celebrated to commemorate the victory of good over evil. It is the most important festival of the Bengalis and is widely celebrated across India and among Indians across the globe. Spread over a period of generally 4-5 days, it is an incessant play of ceremonies, prayers, festivities, culinary delights, socialisation and cultural performances. An amalgation of all these can be fully experienced at the Durga Puja celebrations in Eros Garden, Charmwood Village, Faridabad, which is organised by the Suraj Kund Bangiya Samaj.
Here Durga Puja was celebrated for 6 days on Panchami, Sashti, Saptami, Ashtami, Navami and Vijaya Dashami. The festivities began on Panchami evening with the Ananda Mela, which is a culinary fair, along with exhibits of all kinds for women. Sashti, Saptami, Ashtami and Navami, followed more or less the same daily routine. There was ‘puja’ in the morning, followed by ‘pushpanjali’ (offering of prayers along with flowers). Meanwhile Brahmin women prepared the ‘bhog’ that was to be offered to the goddess. At the same time, competitions were held in the pandal for children and adults like painting competition, recitation competition, fancy costume competition and many more. In the afternoons ‘bhog’ or lunch was served that mainly comprised of the staple ‘khichdi’ or a sort of culmination of rice and ‘dal’, ‘papad’, a vegetable dish and ‘kheer’ which is a sort of a sweet dish. The evenings kicked off with the ‘arati’, followed by cultural events of sorts like dance, musical and theatrical performances. One of the most notable features of the evenings was the fact that massive crowds of people thronged to the food stalls, producing huge profits for them. Vijaya Dashami, as usual, was celebrated on the same day as Dussehra. It is a day of double celebration among the Hindus to mark the victory of good over evil; one in the form of Lord Rama’s victory over the demon Ravana and the other of Goddess Durga’s over the demon Asura. On this day, there was vermillion play among the women and people bid a final adieu to the goddess, before she was finally immersed in the river Yamuna.
Over the years, Durga Puja has become an extremely commercialized festival. Commercialization has creeped into every aspect of the festival. Apart from the fact that today, lakhs of rupees are spent on the celebrations in its entirety; it works on the major principles of a market; advertising/ publicity and maximum accumulation/ derivation of wealth from the entire process. There was sponsorship from various brands like Vodafone, Idea Cellular Company, Aircel, and Manav Rachna Institutes, which helped generate funds for the Puja. Apart from this, there were food stalls and other kinds of stalls that attracted large numbers of buyers, garnered significant publicity as well as handsome amounts of wealth. But the most notable form of competition was that among the pandals in the entire NCR region, which was organized by The Times Of India newspaper, and was called ‘Durgostuti Namostute’.
The pandal of Surajkund Bangiya Samaj has received huge acclaim over the last four years. This year the theme of the pandal was peace and it was executed in the form of a lotus shaped pandal. Prashant Mukherjee, who conceptualized the theme of the pandal, said that he was inspired by the Mumbai Terror Attacks and the dire need for the establishment of peace and non violence in the world. This year, however, the pandal failed to win any award. When asked, the President of the Puja Committee, Partha Pratim Mitra said, “Awards are not the purpose of the Puja. They are just an additional bonus. What is important is that the Puja in its entirety was a huge success and that can be gauged from the fact that there were massive flocks of people in the pandal at all times and people thoroughly enjoyed themselves.” He concluded by saying in Bengali what truly sums up the feel and the purpose of Durga Puja, “next year, we look forward to a Durga Puja that shall be even more grand, successful and entertaining as the year that just passed by”.