Monday Motivation: Puja and পেট পূজা (gorging)

Laxmi Puja Prasad

You might be tempted to question the source of motivation in a post about Festivals and Gorging, but in my opinion, there is no motivation greater than good food in this world. At least for me there isn't. I have gone to great lengths for good food in my life, but I shall not delve into that now.

Let me start with a disclaimer: the rites and rituals of a traditional Puja has never interested me. But that doesn't mean I have never prayed in my life. Even though I embraced the ideologies of my strictly atheist Father at a very young age, I was taught the value of respecting others' views and opinions.

And so, I remember praying when my first dog fell ill. Unfortunately, no one listened to a little boy crouching at a corner of his room, with tears in his eyes. From then on, the only times I prayed was to ask the Almighty not to take away a loved one, however, it seldom worked. Bitter and dejected, in my later years, I started praying to my own Gods - beautiful humans who were angels now. Yet, the charms of the Puja continued to entice me and the reason was simple.

Growing Up

Every Child grows up with the scent of the incense sticks, the fragrance of dhup dhuna, the sound of the bell, the humming of pachali and things of that sort. For me, the frequency of these were a little less than average, but it was what came after the puja that always enticed me.

The Bhog-er Khichuri was a delicacy that made us salivate from the morning, however, the Labra never looked too exciting. The fruits on display did call out to me, as did the naru, payesh, tokti and the various other sweets, but the main attraction of the day was the Chal-Kola.

This special dish was prepared by keeping raw rice submerged in water for a few hours and then adding banana and sugar or batasa to the drained rice. These were then mixed to a thick consistency. The whole process of the preparation was always closely followed by us kids and I have to admit that I do have a long record of stealing a handful whenever no one was paying attention.

And so my connection with Pet Puja continued well into my teens. Most of these experiences were gathered at my Ancestral home in Coochbehar, under the love of my Grand Mother and my Bommas (Aunties). Here my love for food was not only acknowledged, it was encouraged and I was pampered in depth during the course of my stay.

Later Years

Nothing lasts for ever and with time, the days spent at home on such occasions lessened. On the other hand, we grew up too and the world started to become a lot more complex. The love for Chal Kola remained unchanged, however, the favours and scents had altered with time. The taste of those mornings of yester years in the prasad got lost somewhere in my childhood itself.

But that did not stop me from relishing the delicacies that was associated with Puja. They say if you want something with the whole of your heart, the whole Universe plots to provide it to you. It works with food too and so my pet puja continued. However, the taste of those early morning spent at home still eluded me, and it was only recently that I understood the real reason for that.

That পেট পূজা associated with Puja had some special ingredients that are forever missing now. It had the warmth of my home, with a wholesome helping of family and friends, the right sprinkle of patience and the cherry of love, on top of the cake. But the real favour of those days came from my childhood, the innocence, the simplicity of life and the ability to enjoy without any distraction. Just like my childhood, it was impossible to get that taste back.

Present Times

Which brings us to the present times. Few months back, I was invited to my colleague's place for the occasion of Eid and we were welcomed with the choicest of fruits and snacks. There were nadu, murki, patisapta, puli pitha and what not. To make matters even better, the main course was a fabulous biriyani. We ate, talked and had a wonderful time. It was a festival, a holy occasion and food made the day rosier.

A glimpse of the starter on Eid

Just a couple of months later, Vishwakarma Puja arrived and that was the day that something changed. Understandably, this was a huge occasion at work and the arrangement were second to none.

As I relished the fourth helping of the gorgeous Khichri served for lunch, I realized that maybe, I had approached the entire thing wrong. Maybe the flavours of my Childhood were not supposed to come back, it was perhaps safer in my memories. Why not then, enjoy things as they come and make more memories? Why not ensure that the beauty of Puja and পেট পূজা remains constant?

And so I made a new rule in my life, to have a feast on every Puja or Festival and make every day memorable and worthwhile. So on Durga Puja, I brushed aside my shackles and devoured the choicest Ilish, some pretty prawns, mutton, chicken, sweets, no holds barred!

In the build up to Laxmi Puja, I was intensely involved in shopping, which made my family wonder if I was finally embracing religion. I pointed out that I was merely ensuring that we had a variety of ingredients for the prasad and assured them that it was still all about pet puja for me. Because we have just one life and since your ability to eat will diminish with time, we must ascertain that the Pet Puja continues. Because পেট পূজা is as important as Puja itself.

The greatest puja is taking care of yourself

Never forget that when the lights go out, it is just you. The term pet puja was coined as a joke to refer to eating, but in truth, feeding yourself is perhaps the holiest act in the world. Every person who eats well and is bighearted enough to share his food with people is an incarnation of the Almighty.

Like Father like son - Messi has his eyes on the prize already

I reiterate my stance that পেট পূজা is just as vital a component of our lives as Puja or Festival. It is the magic that unites us, atheist and believers alike and no one can deny the fact that it makes every festival sweeter. পেট পূজা has perhaps the same soothing effect as the Puja, it leaves its disciples satisfied and content. পেট পূজা is also omnipresent, it does not differential between religion, caste or creed. It does not judge people based on colour or appearance, everyone is welcome.

They say that the main difference between humans and animals is that humans eat to live and animals live to eat. Foodies like me have made a slight alteration to the stance. It is true that humans don't live only to eat, but there is nothing wrong in gorging once in a while, especially during the festivals. পেট পূজা is, thus, the mantra of life for foodies all over the world.

So this Monday, if you are counting down to the days of Kali Puja, Bhai Phota and Chhat Puja for a tastier reason, relax, you are not the only one. You have a friend me!

Have a great week ahead!

Goodbyes and the Optimism of Bijoya Dashami

There's no better example of "Good Times Fly" than Durga Puja. The wait is endless it seems, but when Maa Durga finally arrives, the days are gone by in a flash. All of a sudden, Dashami Evening is here and it is time to bid Maa Durga a fond adieu. Having to say goodbye is painful, but parting in the knowledge that we shall meet again lessens the agony. It is the perfect farewell and it is just the assurance that life needs from time to time. Dashami, as such, has a quiet element of optimism about her. 

Let us leave aside the mythological aspects of the event and just focus on the emotional part. In fact, let us take stock of an average person’s Durga Puja. Sasthi, Saptami, Asthami, you have had your fill of fun, adda and photographs. Let us not forget the food either, that is, after all, an equally important aspect of the Festival. The three days have sped away, as if they have far less than their normal quota of 24 hours now and you have reached the penultimate evening of the Puja - the Nabami Night.

Ah, Nabami night, the vehemently viscous being, the merciless menace that sits in the backdrop and grins at time. Remember, the night whispers, a few hours more and it is all over. Remember, it whispers. Remember and pretty soon, it is all you can remember. This seamlessly slots into every conversation and now you cannot speak two words without counting time. The lights and the glamour are all temporary and you know, they won’t last for long now.

By the time you have returned home at various hours of the night, sadness would have already gripped you. In fact, you might as well return in the wee hours of dawn, but you cannot escape the pangs of remorse. There are various kinds of feeling bad – end of vacations, returning to the stale old routine, heading back to work, to school, to college and goodbyes. The last breaks your heart into a thousand pieces. For me, Dashami means the end of vacations and return to work, hundreds of miles away from my abode. Dashami means it’s almost time to leave Malbazar. They say when you do something regularly, it becomes a part of your routine, it becomes a habit. Every year, after Dashami, I always have to say goodbye to the place I love the most in this world, yet it could never become a habit. It still pains as much as the first time I left home years ago.

This year too, Dashami was glum as ever, even though Mother Nature tried her best to cheer up my mood. It was a beautiful sunny morning, you could see the effort She put in there. There was a chill in the October air as usual, which meant that the morning sun felt comfortable, warm and loving. However, there was a sadness dwelling deep within every event of the day.

Messi accompanied his Mother and Grand Mother to bid Maa Durga Goodbye

One by one, I watched people say their goodbyes to Maa Durga, the warmth in their voices, the care in their hands and the love in their hearts. It was a colourful morning, yet you could not help but feel that everyone around was nursing a heavy heart. Morning turned to noon and as dusk settled over Malbazar, people made arrangements for the final journey. It was time. One by one, various Puja Committees proceeded towards the Ghat at Mal Nodi. I watched from the side of the road, as did thousands of people with me. Fanatic devotees danced and laughed and made merry on the way, creating enough memories to last at least a year.

On my way back, I stopped in front of the empty pandal of my neighborhood. Unlike the bright lights from Nabami night, the lovely works of art would last a little longer. There was an uncanny emptiness inside though, a desolation that was visible, but what about the emptiness within our hearts? You don’t have to be a believer to feel sad, not on Dashami. This emptiness that we all feel on Dashami is the vacuum of goodbye. For me and in reality, many more like me, the vacuum is a lot deeper. It is the knowledge that another big goodbye is just around the corner. End of vacation, return to work, even leaving one’s family behind for some. For me, the remorse is mainly from having to say goodbye to Malbazar, my home town.

Malbazar is no less than family for me, it is the fulcrum of all my memories of growing up. I have always looked around and seen images of me from the past. And so the day after Dashami, I took the path through my childhood and proceeded to dwell into my past once again. I walked by the railway track and saw myself balancing on the parallel bars. I went to my school and millions of memories flashed by. I sat on the school ground and remembered running on the grass, carefree and alive. I stood on the auditorium and pictured the morning assembly. I looked around and even saw a few of my friends by my side. I walked through the various lanes of my town and reached a bygone era. In the evening, I stood outside my house and saw myself from years ago, with friends and family, adored, cared and blessed. And I suddenly realized how Dashami is a lesson in optimism. An Optimism that is built on the most powerful thing in the world - hope.

Through all the sadness and the agony, there is hope. At the start of the day, it is minuscule, hardly evident, lost in transition. Slowly, as the night proceeded and the melancholy mood of the evening grips you, hope gathers wings. Hope resides in the knowledge that Maa Durga will be back. It will take time, it will be long and the road will be unpredictable. There will be ups and downs and life will most certainly change. I shall change in the course of the year, as might everyone else. The future will be uncertain, but there is one thing we can all count on – next year too, Mahalaya will arrive. It is an assurance that might be the only constant in life, it is a constant that feeds the hope within us and brings a sense of contentment. It is this hope in the parting that makes the farewell bearable. Like Maa Durga’s assured smile, which promises that She shall most certainly return again next year and the year after - She shall always return.

Perhaps we all need the optimism of Dashami in our lives too. Maybe the assurance will be missing at times, but hope has the ability to make up for it. It is the belief that good times shall return, it is a faith that no farewell is forever. When you care for something or someone too much, you never say goodbye. You just part temporarily, with hopes of meeting again. You are always connected through memories, through your consciousness that they have helped build. For me, Malbazar is a part of my consciousness and the hope that I shall return again and again fuels me on, to meet every day of my life with a smile. No matter how many years pass by, the shelves will always be full of memories and it is from these memories that hope will continue to draw strength.

As another long wait begins, I hope the Optimism of this Bijoya Dashami will keep you inspired to face your days with a smile too.

Subho Bijoya

Durga Puja, Disappointment and Coming Home

How does one deal with disappointment? How does one cope up with the cancellation of plans? This week I experienced a pot hole in the road to life and found myself disheartened, disappointed and broken. The reason was simple – it was Durga Puja and for the first time in 33 years of my life, there were chances that I would be spending it away from home. For the average Indian, it is hardly something to feel bad about, one only has to look at it as a leave that was cancelled - happens, life goes on. However, for the Bengali, things are a little bit different.

Statutory Warning: I am an atheist, but the greatest festival on earth had me hooked since as long as I can remember.

When I was a little child, we waited for Durga Puja all year long. The wait normally started with the earth-crumbling pains from the immersion of Maa Durga on Dashami night. Slowly, the grandiloquent lights of the festive season would go out, one by one, until the merry streets turned to regular roads, unromantic, silent and dark except for its regular street lights. The first real break would come within a few weeks though, with the arrival of Kali Puja. The streets would lit up again, there would be an added perk of crackers, some would be lucky enough to get new dresses, but for the rest of us, the fragrance of Durga Maa still residing in our dresses would suffice. Kali Puja would culminate in Bhai phota and for the regular Bengali, the wait would officially begin.

The joys of the new dresses would succumb within the depths of the almirahs; these dresses would see light again, during the odd special occasions, a birthday here and there, a visit to relatives, but their mystic charms would be gone by then. Slowly, the normalcy of life would return, the year long wait would be painfully slow now.

I had always associated Durga Puja with the month of October, which was my second favourite month of the year. November would turn to April in a whimper and we would submerge ourselves in our regular lives, which would be occupied with homework and books and slowly move on to presentations and reports. All the while, one peek at the calendar, or the office holiday list and we would occasionally be reminded that Maa is coming. Soon enough, July would end and it would be just over two months to Puja. Excitement would be bubbling up in little me, pestering my parents for that Sukhtara and Anandamela Puja Edition, waiting patiently for Puja shopping and crossing each day as it passes on the calendar. The countdown to Durga Puja, had started!

Autumn would bring with her pleasant weather, clear skies and my favourite Kash Ful. It did not feel like Durga Puja was around the corner until I had spotted them. The herd of silvery white puffs on blades, swinging slowly with the pleasant breeze would give me chills down my spines. I would begin to spend time at the Kumartulis, the places where they craft the idol of Maa Durga, watching in glee as the slow and cumbersome progress announced that there were only a few days left. Puja shopping would be over soon, and there would be dress rehearsals in the confinements of my room, away from my parents’ notice.

For the only time of the year, the old radio in our house would suddenly become very dear to me. On Mahalaya, we would get up early to Birendra Krishna Bhadra’s legendary voice reciting “Mahisasurmardini” on the All India Radio. His mesmerizing voice would enthral me as Maa Durga would battle Mahisasur in my head. For the whole day, there would be only one thing in my mind – Namstashay, Namastashay, Namastashay, Namo Namaha.

Just before the start of Durga Puja, I would accompany my parents and travel to our ancestral place, to spend the holidays with my cousins. Nestled in a quiet village in rural bengal, it was the stuff dreams are made of. Back then, the weather would begin to turn cold before the pujas and we would get up early to see the first yellow rays of the morning sun, dissolving the fog of the dawn. Dew drops would stay collected on leaves in the garden and the courtyard would be decorated with fresh “shiuly” flower. We kids would rush and shake the tree repeatedly, inflicting innocent harassment in the process, and the selfless being would shower us with more flower. In the afternoons, the normal games and play time would end earlier than usual, as we would put on our new clothes and accompany our parents to go pandel hopping long before the term was invented. 3 days that made up our year and the 4^th day culminating in the painful goodbye to Maa Durga. These were the 4 most memorable days of the year for us.

Years went by, the ritual continued. Venues changed, as did the events of the times, only the coming home part stayed constant. Friends made the days brighter, we grew up and with us Durga Puja changed too. The hardest bit to accept was the goodbye we had to say to people close to our hearts, without whom, Puja lost a bit of its charm and warmth. They remained etched to memories, never to return and it made the Durga Pujas of those bygone era a whole lot sweeter.

But even devoid of some of its past glories, it is hard to deny the homeward draw that this time brings with itself. A Durga Puja not spent at home – which for me, by the way, is Malbazar – was still unimaginable. And so I returned, year after year after year, even though under the brightest of lights, there were pains of separation, there were moments where I would look over the shoulder and remember the ones who were gone forever. Yet, there still was a contentment in being home for Puja. Which brings us to the present scenario.

Just a week before the day my leave was scheduled for, the sky crumbled down upon me. A severe emergency at work meant that everyone’s leaves were put on hold. We strived for a solution and paced through the CAPAs and RCAs, however, with each passing day, my chances looked bleak. The pain that engulfed me when I had to wake up and go to office on the day I was supposed to go on that long drive home, broke my heart. On Panchami, I sat on my desk and looked out the window. The sky was the brightest shade of blue, the courtyard tree was basking in the pleasant warmth of the autumn sun, its leaves swaying occasionally from the gentle breeze blowing. There was the aura of Durga Puja in the air, but the glass panes of the window forbade it from touching me. I brushed my pen aside, disappointed and leaned back into my chair. I could have been standing in front of our pandal back home, watching the artisans speeding through the final touches. I could have been indulging in those minute details. I took in a deep breathe and tried to stay hopeful. Maybe tomorrow, things would be better and I could go home.

Durga Puja from Barpeta Road

Sasthi morning almost chocked me up. While everyone dwelled in the dhoop dhuna and the Sasthi puja, I dressed for work. Once again the open skies beckoned me through the window. I wiped away a hint of a tear in the corner of my eyes and continued working on my keyboard, pressing the keys a little too violently at times. No one cared. When I returned from work at 8 pm in the evening, I tried to imagine my town lit up with the lights of the festival. Disappointment had a foul smell and its stench had already blown all the fun out of me. As I walked through the door at home, a little voice said “Baba!” Dressed in his new clothes, my son was ready for pandel hopping. I smiled as little Messi rushed ahead, hugged me and asked to climb up to my lap. At that very moment, as his little hands grasped me with all his might, I had an epiphany. I saw my entire life flash in front of me.

I remembered how my Father found his joy in my moments of fun. I remember him giving me all the riches of the world and watching my content smile. I realized that there comes a moment in time when you find your happiness in the happiness of people who matter the most to you. I guess that is what Durga Puja is all about. It is a time to be with family, to celebrate life and to celebrate having someone to care for.

Messi enjoying in Sasthi

 
I hugged my little Messi and took him out to visit the nearby pandals. I watched his joy at the sight of the Asur and the Lion. I watched him run around the pandal, full of life. I saw him smile at me, the way I smiled at my Father years ago and I watched over him as my Father did before. We came home later at night, content and happy. Fortunately, the story does not end here.

Something happened in the night. Maybe it was divine intervention, maybe it was compassionate seniors at work, but I started writing this article in the confinements of my office desk, dejected and sad and I finish it in the comforts of my home on Asthami morning. The Sky is still a brilliant shade of blue, the morning sun is still comfortingly warm. The fragrance of Shiuly is filling up the air and blowing into me abundantly. But none of that matches up to the sight of little Messi running around excited, ecstatic and busy as a bee. And I know, as long as he's happy, I am content.

How does one best deal with disappointment? In the comfort of Family. Durga Puja spent at home certainly has no match in the World, but it is the company of your loved ones during this time, irrespective of wherever you might be, that makes Durga Puja the greatest festival on earth.

Subho Saradiya.