Brazilian football legend Ronaldinho held a puja thali as he stood in front of Ma Durga last year while inaugurating the famed Durga Puja at Sreebhumi in north Calcutta.
This year, we had Brian Lara playing the dhak and Olympics shooting star Manu Bhaker in traditional Bengali housewife in Pujas attire, complete with shakha pola, being asked who was her favourite – Shah Rukh or Salman Khan.
Lara was at the Suruchi Sangha Club Durga Puja pandal this past Sunday. And Manu was at Sreebhumi, the Durga Puja that Mamata Banerjee inaugurated on the first day of her Puja inauguration spree this year.
Yes, Calcutta's Durga Puja offers sights – and sounds – you will not get anywhere else in the world. Here's a quick compilation.
Lara’s words summed it up best. “It’s a wonderful festival.”
Ace shooter Manu Bhaker, a double bronze winner at the Paris Olympics, was at Sreebhumi on Saturday, swapping her shooting gloves, jackets, glasses and blinkers for a Bengali lal paar sari.
“This is the first time I am seeing Durga Puja in Kolkata. I don’t understand Bengali. The only two things I understood were an Olympic gold and Kolkatar rosogolla,” Bhaker said, prompting a roaring applause.
At the felicitation that followed, Sujit Bose, state minister and president of the Sreebhumi Sporting Club, told Manu about her “illustrious predecessors” from the world of sports who had visited the Puja in the past.
“You will be thrilled to know that Maradona and Ronaldinho were among those who graced this same stage,” Bose said.
Last year, social media went into a tizzy with rumours that Lionel Messi would be at the Sreebhumi pandal. Alas, the hopes were dashed when Sreebhumi Sporting Club said it was fake news.
A 32-foot-high statue of Messi stood in a pandal at Narendrapur’s Green Park Sarbojonin, however.
In 2015, Brazilian soccer legend Pele visited Calcutta during Durga Puja. Pele launched the Chetla Agrani club’s Puja pandal and listened in rapt attention as Sourav Ganguly explained to him the nuances of the annual festival.
Perhaps next year, Turkey’s Yusuf Dikec and South Korea's Kim Yeji will shoot Mahisashur in Calcutta?
In Calcutta, impossible is nothing – especially during Durga Puja.