It might be the 85th puja of New Town but it is the only puja that is not happening under the banner of any particular block or housing society residents’ welfare association.
New Town’s first centrally organised Durga puja announced its presence with a grand khuti puja celebration on Wednesday. The ground chosen for it is the City Square behind the Clock Tower in Action Area 1.
“This will truly be everyone’s puja,” announced president of New Town Sarbojanin Durgotsab Urmila Sen, adding that the ground had been booked for the relevant days with the NKDA. Women’s empowerment, she said, was an overarching message that the committee wanted to send out. “We want to salute women in every field who are emerging victorious in their life struggles. Our priests are women, our dhakis are women and so are our dhunuchi dancers today,” she said.
Construction of the pandal has been underway long before the decorated bamboo pole (khuti) was erected. “The area of the pandal is huge — 150ft by 150ft. The circular structure will be outwardly wrapped with red-bordered white sari, representing Banga Janani, which will be our theme. We will use a collage of the traditional handicrafts of Bengal,” said Prasanta Pal, the theme-maker. Thus there will be a feel of Nabanna celebration on stepping inside the pandal. Dolls from various traditions — string puppet, dokra figurines, wooden statuettes, clay models — will all be part of the decor. “Chomok thakbe (there will be a surprise),” smiled the man, who is in charge of five pujas this year.
Women priests perform khuti puja at the site on Wednesday. Sudeshna Banerjee
The khuti puja brought together politicians, administrators and corporate honchos, with industrialist Harsh Neotia being the chief guest. Deputy commissioner of police, New Town, Bishop Sarkar said he was proud as a New Town resident and tense as a policeman. “This will be a challenge but we can surely plan out things well in advance to manage the crowd,” he said.
With crowd management at the Sreebhumi puja across VIP Road emerging as a bigger challenge with every passing year, Bidhannagar police will have its task cut out, especially as minister Sujit Bose’s big budget puja is celebrating its golden jubilee this year. The pandal, as announced by The Telegraph on July 8, will be a replica of St. Peter’s Basilica of the Vatican City.
New Town Sarbojanin, which has positioned itself with the slogan Notun shohor, notun pujo (New township, new puja), has got its logo designed by the artist Shuvaprasanna who attended the ceremony. “This puja draws colour from all kinds of people who are coming together for this. So I used the multi-colour effects of stained glass,” he said.
Local MLA Tapash Chatterjee and Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation mayor Krishna Chakraborty were also present.