Festival honours creative force of women

Durga Puja - a joyous Hindu festival dedicated to the 'mother goddess' - is marked with community events and feasts
NACHAMMAI RAMAN, FreelancePublished: 46 minutes ago
Music blaring from loudspeakers attached to lampposts and trees, sweet shops bustling with shoppers and streets lined with racks of colourful statues are memories Jatindra Kanungo has of Durga Puja in his native India before he came to Montreal 35 years ago.

"In the northeastern part of India, Durga Puja is the biggest Hindu festival," said Kanungo, a member of the Montreal Bengali community. People who come from Bangladesh and the northeastern Indian province of West Bengal are called "Bengali" and share a common language and culture.

Durga Puja, which generally falls in October, is dedicated to the goddess Durga whom the Bengalis also call Devi, mother goddess. The festival, celebrated in the rest of India over a nine-day period known as Navaratri, has its roots in a legend that goddess Durga annihilated a demon that none of the male gods could slay. "Durga is the dynamic power that makes life evolve through birth and death," said Rakhal Battacharya, who comes from a line of Hindu scholars in Bangladesh, where Hinduism is a minority religion.

Durga also symbolizes the creative force of womanhood. "Women represent a life force without which nothing can come into existence or evolve," Battacharya said.

Battacharya explained that Durga Puja prayers are said over a four- or five-day period depending on the Hindu almanac, which follows a lunar calendar. There is a lot of intricate ceremony involved in this, but basically, the idea is that goddess Durga is invoked to lead her followers in the path of righteousness and duty (dharma), shower them with prosperity (artha), bless them with aesthetic and sensual pleasure (kama) and show them salvation (moksha). "When you have these four things, you have everything," Battarcharya said with a chuckle.
He explained that the Bengali tradition of celebrating Durga Puja is rooted in the folklore that a minor king who once lost his kingdom regained everything after praying to the goddess as prescribed by a Hindu saint.

Durga Puja is a community event, but in Montreal, given that the Bengalis don't have a Hindu temple of their own, it's often observed quietly in people's shrines at home. Time is also a factor here. In India and Bangladesh, Durga Puja is an official holiday. School holidays fall around this period. Kanungo recalled that when he was a child in India, he had two weeks off from school coinciding with Durga Puja to enjoy the festivities.

This year, the Montreal Bengali Community has seized on the long weekend for Thanksgiving, Oct. 11 to 13 to roll out its Durga Puja activities at a local Hindu temple that they have rented in Dollard des Ormeaux.

Members of the Bengali community participate in these Durga Puja functions for different reasons, Kanungo said. "For the religious-minded, the rituals and prayers are important. Then, there are also those who come for cultural and social reasons - to meet their friends, eat Bengali food, enjoy music and dance."

The actual Durga Puja, which runs from Monday to Thursday, will be observed by people in their own manner. Most people keep a vegetarian diet during this period, Kanungo said. His wife, Dolly, said she will hold prayers in her shrine at home.

Durga Puja is also a time for sari shopping and sweet-making for Dolly because women wear new clothes and offer such Bengali delicacies as rossogola (curd balls in syrup) and sandesh (flavoured cottage cheese) to their friends. Sari and sweet shops in Côte des Neiges, Park Extension and the West Island do brisk business in the run-up.
"It's a joyous festival," Jatindra Kanungo noted. "Durga means to destroy bad things."
source: http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=47a2fb87-afd6-4f94-8d73-dd1038c0ba63&p=2