Durga, a rear view mirror

If you happen to be passing a particularly busy street in Kolkata during the festivities, you may not really stand and stare at any thing in particular. It is of course just another busy street, with busy people..but then you look a bit deeper and there's a hassled father who has taken time out from the office to take his family out pandal hopping, there's a little boy holding a toy gun he has bee...n wanting to buy for sometime, there's a girl who drapes that saree a bit extra joyously. There are lights of every hue, durga in so many avatars and yet there is that little Durga in the small neighbourhood pujo that I stopped to see, she sits pretty and looks like a little angel in her simplicity...sans all decoration..all razmataz, she is the Ma, earthy and someone you can laugh and scold.

Durga here stands in a corner, once the Panchami pujos had been completed. Her eyes shown in beauty, this Durga is dimunitive, the asura is small too, the painter has gone scarce on the paint probably..the neigbourhood association probably has less money... There is a small stage that has been erected, some elderly gentlemen sit around and talk, there is some tea that passes around in small earthen cups, someone is still fixing the lights, the Dhaki and his son are busy playing, he dances a bit..he does not overdo it..his payment will not allow it. His son plays too..on the stage are little children..the Puja is for them..they are Durga and her joy, they are Mahishashur and his agony too, they are the celebration..their dance and their joy is what Durga puja is all about somehow.