Durga Puja is a the main festival of Bengali people. But it should be promoted as the main festival of entire country. It should be our national festival. The amount of creativity being used in making pandals and the variety of idols and themes used in Durga Puja are truly awesome. Such unique traits have made it not just a religious festival but also a featival of art & culture.
Who is goddess Durga?
According to Hindu mythology, Durga is the goddess, who killed the demon Mahishasura in a fierce battle to bring peace in the planet of Earth and also in heaven.
Bengalies imagine that Durga lives with her husband Mahadeva in the mountain Kailash and comes to her 'home' only for few days in a year. Those few days are celebrated as Durga Puja. At end of Durga puja, the goddess returns to her husband's home again.
Bengalies love to conceptualize the goddess as their 'mother' or 'daughter'. Many Bengali people living around the world come back home and celebrate the spirit of puja holidays.
The opportunities we miss for tourism...
West Bengal can be a great land of travel & tourism. But because of the lack of vision by our Indian govenment and West Bengal govenment, we don't promote Durga Puja to the foreigners. In Ratha Yatra festival of Odisha state, a lot of foreigners come. Then why the Durga puja festival is being neglected? Only recently, during the last day of the festival, a carnival was organized by the state govenment in which some selected foreign representatives were invited. But my question is why only in the carnival? The tourists can be attracted to West Bengal from Shasthi (the sixth day of the festival) onwards.
India and West Bengal can earn a lot of money if we can popularize Durga Puja tourism in the countries and continents like, USA, Europe, Australia and South-East Asia. During travel & tourism fare in these countries & continents, we need to participate and talk about Indian festivities in which the Durga puja related tourism should be highlighted. Indian ministry of tourism should take this suggestion seriously.
My personal experience of Durga puja
Many Bengalies loves to hang around with friends during Durga Puja, which they popularly call as 'adda'. Some indulge into the activities of puja rituals. I, on the other hand, take my camera and click some pictures during pandal hopping.
Durga puja is a great time to know the streets of the city of Kolkata as there are a lot of festival volunteers and officers of Kolkata police to assist you in case you need street guidance. So, along with watching pandals, I walk a lot to explore unknown places of my city and have fun.
Some of pictures of Durga Puja 2023
I am going to populate the below space with some of camera snapshots taken during this year's puja:
