Durga Puja: few words — II

Blame it on bogus Bollywood numbers or give a million thanks to sesquicentenary celebrations of Tagore. But this time, it's bye-bye Bollywood, welcome Bangla, again on loudspeakers. This is probably the most welcome change of Puja 2011.

Maybe it's one of the better years in Bengali film industry, popularly known as Tollywood, too, after the golden days of the 1960s and '70s. Along with Tagore, Tollywood has a good role to play in shaping the culture of Bengal. In the recent past, it's hardly seen to find four-five big-budget Tollywood release in the run-up to the Puja. But 2011 is different. The mood set by Autograph last year has just been taken over by a series of films that drew film-buffs back to theatres. Multiplexes in Kolkata, once only beaming Bollywood flicks, have now started screening more than one Bengali film this festive season. This is a sea change in terms of viewership vis-a-vis business. Songs from Bengali films like Ichhe or Baishe Shravan are now being played across the city in the past few days — something unimaginable even five years ago.

Bollywood films were quite a few in numbers this year though runaway hits could be confined to only a few or at least those have not arrived on loudspeakers in localities dotted with Durga Puja pandals. Songs from Bodyguard, a superhit Salman Khan movie released on Eid like last year's Dabangg, were only heard being played on FM channels! After four days of the Puja since Sunday, one can easily find that Bengali songs — mostly Rabindrasangeet — are on the loudspeakers that used to blare "Munni Badnam Hui" last year. I don't know whether we, Bengalis, are still obsessed with Tagore or not, but a little push from our chief minister for the bard's 150th year birth anniversary has seen many a "parar dada" paying obeisance to Rabindranath this Puja. We know our chief minister's obsession (or, OCD) with Tagore songs at traffic signals and railway stations. The best part is people are largely inspired by her thoughts with those of Tagore's being lost into the oblivion!

Durga Puja: few words — I

Puja, for millions of Bengalis, is not merely a festival for pandal-hopping or sporting new shirts, suits and saris. It's a celebration of the times we are in; a time to remember that we live in a society where there are people beyond my self; a time for celebrating the changing colours of life.

Yesterday, on the day of Maha Saptami, i was impressed by an initiative of a Puja committee in south Kolkata where female members of an old-age home were given away sari just after the morning puja ended. This is what people can do: just look beyond their drawing rooms to bring about a change in the lives of others in whatever little way possible. The otherwise gloomy faces of the 30-odd members of the old-age home who were hardly visited by their well-off sons and daughters, mostly NRIs, even during the festive season were suddenly brightened up by the Puja gifts. Money can buy a spacious room at an old-age home but not sheer joy of one's parents. A general sense of responsibility is probably the necessity of the hours. Our responsibility should not end at our workstations only. We tend to forget people even in times of joy and happiness; we often try not to remember those who made us what we are today. Our world is shrinking with times, with every passing day we are getting busier than the previous one... where even the festive spirits can't play a big role.

Can we call Durga Puja a carnival? Or is it Holi that comes close to the sense of a carnival? When thousands of people hit the streets in Kolkata or suburbs with colourful attires taken directly from the latest fashion boutiques the roads seem a sea of humanity cheering up for the most sought-after event of their calendars. It's just a wide and wild imagination to compare tsunami on Central Avenue with Sao Paulo carnival! But sometime, i feel that the annual festive season takes away the gloom from us to leave us in a gleeful state. Isn't not what we call carnival? In serious literary term, the Puja days are not at all carnivalesque. Youngsters spinning on motorcycles with girlfriends as pillion or hatchbacks-turned-jukeboxes on the road teeming with people are obvious examples of how we have made carnival out of the biggest festival in this part of the world for five days. Pictures of pale faces get blurred during the celebrations of the prowess of a mythical lady who killed the demon; unfilled spaces in our hearts get fulfilment through the positive energy generated during the Puja; moreover, these five days can wipe out our tears of the rest 360 days. Such is the power of Durga Puja!