Durga Puja: Down memory lane…

Durga Puja: Down memory lane…
-- Dr R Neerunjun Gopee
India, said Mr Mani, the High Commissioner of India, is a land of contrast, you will see for yourselves shortly… We were winners of scholarships offered by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, and we would soon be proceeding for our studies to India. Mr Mani had convened us to the Indian High Commission adjoining the seat of the Arya Sabha in Port Louis, and he received us in his office to give us a little briefing about our forthcoming trip and about India in general. The year was 1965.
His words came to me sharply as I watched the news and pictures on Indian television over the past few days. Bomb blasts had rocked India afresh after barely a couple of weeks of similar blasts in Ahmedabad and New Delhi, this time in Mehrauli, Delhi -- a locality I can claim as being my second home -- in Malegaon in Maharashtra, and in Valsad in Gujarat. Neither in Pakistan, where the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad was all but destroyed from massive explosions taking place in a lorry that was parked in its front yard, with dozens of dead and hundreds of injured, nor in India with equally serious damage and dead/injured, did the fact that it was the holy month of Ramadan seem to make any difference. Nor in Turkey or in Irak for that matter.
As if this was not enough misery, a temple stampede in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, day before yesterday resulted in nearly 150 dead and hundreds of injured. Thousands of pilgrims were lined up for about two kilometers to enter the temple precincts on the occasion of Durga Puja when the railing on which they were leaning gave way. Apparently there was a bomb blast rumour, and this triggered the panic. According to the news, the police were not at all prepared for this magnitude of disaster, especially for emergency rescue of the injured. A lot of youths rushed to the place as soon as they heard the news, and valiantly helped in transporting the injured to the hospital. No ambulance transport was available, as it is the police were overwhelmed with simply containing the crowd that had panicked.
People commented that similar arrangements as obtain at another well-known pilgrimage site, Vaishno Devi Mandir in the Himalayan hills, should be made at other important pilgrimage sites which receive large numbers of devotees. Thanks to Lt.-Governor Jugmohan when he was in charge of Kashmir in the early 1980s, the kuccha footpath that wound up the hills for 13 kilometres from the base town Katra to the shrine was transformed into a pucca trail with proper slabs, handrails, stopover areas and spotlessly clean restrooms at intervals of about a kilometre and a continuous supply of fresh water from huge tanks along the way. All this make the trek to Vaishno Devi sheer joy, and all manner of facilities are made available to pilgrims. The old and disabled are carried in palanquins or on stretchers, children can take pony rides, and I believe that for some years now there is even a helicopter service. The number of pilgrims exceeds two million, but there has never been a stampede. It is all very orderly as one queues up in approaching the shrine after taking an icy cold shower in the fresh water from the mountain spring. And as one crosses pilgrims, the greeting exchanged is Jai Mata Di! – Glory to the Mother!
While the police and investigating authorities are enquiring into the blasts, and the injured are being treated in hospitals, with relatives and parents either mourning the dead or anxiously waiting for health bulletins in the premises of hospitals – for the rest, traumatized though they are, life has to go on. The state of Rajasthan declared one day of mourning, but today the Chamunda temple opened to allow devotees to come in for Durga Puja, although they were understandably fewer in number. Pictures were shown of pilgrims celebrating in Katra, as they began to make the climb. Crowds were seen dancing the garba-dandia in Gujarat, Mumbai and Agra. This dance forms part of the Navaratri especially in Gujarat, but it is clear that its popularity has spread beyond Gujarat. It is a most wonderful spectacle indeed, so colourful and so joyful – even watching it on TV makes one’s heart palpitate, imagine actually being there and participating!
Such, alas, is the contrast and the reality. With the benefit of hindsight and after all these years, having seen a bit of the world, I can say that Mr Mani’s remarks apply not only to India but to many other countries as well. Why, even in our tiny island we have some marked contrasts, it may be a question of scale but they are none the less equally striking. I leave it to individual Mauritians to work it out for themselves.
The centre of Durga Puja celebrations is in West Bengal, home to the famous Kali mandir at Dakshineshwar. With the majority of its Hindu population having been driven away, what a pity that Bangladesh misses the opportunity for a great showcasing of rich diversity like India! But in West Bengal, Durga Puja time – or more simply as it is referred to, Puja – is a month-long explosion of religious fervour, street exhibitions, melas with vendors coming from as far as Punjab, dance, food, merry-making. The profound spiritual significance of Durga Puja – worship of the Mother Goddess as the primal Shakti or Cosmic Energy that leads to the manifested world – is allied to religious devotion as people prepare feverishly and pray at the shrines and pandals put up in their localities (in addition to praying at home), and as they walk about after the ceremonies, visiting friends and family, visiting the melas, gulping down the myriad varieties of sweets for which India is only too well-known. In Bengal the rasagolla is the favourite sweet, a round spongy ball, off white in colour and that is eaten whole with its rose-flavoured syrup.
When I was in Kolkata – then Calcutta – I was never one for the prized rasagolla. I developed a slight taste for it only after I left the city. In fact as far as I am concerned the same applies to all sweets. As a student my main preoccupation were the darned tough medical studies, and in those heady days of youth one did not have any existential angst, so Puja time was essentially one for going about in the evenings to relax and to visit the stalls at the melas, and picking up any bargains according to one’s needs. I remember buying some beautiful bedcovers and pillowcases in the mela put up in the Park Circus maidan, which was a few yards away from the International Students’ House where I sent my six years in the ‘City of Joy’. The last time I visited was in June 1972, when we had to go and submit our certificate of completion of internship which was done at the Safdarjung Hospital in New-Delhi. Maybe one of these days, be present in Kolkata for Durga Puja…
RN Gopee
source: http://www.mauritiustimes.com/031008gopee.htm