Puja lovers of Kolkata gathered on Wednesday to thank the Unesco for inscribing the city’s biggest festival on its Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The inscription has given the festival an international recognition and can be an effective tool in the state’s attempt to catapult Durga Puja to the global tourism map.
A rally was brought out from the Academy of Fine Arts that had stake-holders and enthusiasts walking shoulder to shoulder in a statement of collective pride. The only message on display, thrice over, was “#thanks Unesco 2021”, the individual letters held aloft as cut-outs by three groups of 17 people each, walking side by side at intervals. That was also the message on the paper caps given out at the registration table, along with an element of chalchitra décor.
When the tip reached the foot of the Park Street flyover, the end was near the Jeevan Deep bus stop on Jawaharlal Nehru Road.
“It is fitting that the celebration is taking place on the streets where community pujas are held,” said art historian Tapati Guha Thakurta, who had led the team that compiled the dossier sent as application to Unesco at the behest of Sangeet Natak Akademi in 2019.
It was a day to be a proud Kolkatan. Puja theme-maker Dipak Ghosh came in dhuti-panjabi. “This is the second happiest day of my life after the day my son got a great job,” he said. “Fantastic feeling,” exclaimed assistant commissioner of police, south division, Partha Mukherjee, who has logged years of Puja duty.
Innumerable puja committees came, a few, like Barisha Club, with banners and the rest walking unnamed. Even household pujas were represented. While Prasun Hazra of the Rani Rashmoni family was on the dais, Haimanti Deb, whose family is continuing a pre-Partition tradition started in Sylhet, was drawn by the enormity of the occasion.
Flavia Boti (centre) of Argentina and her parents Hamid and Liliam at the rally. “We are visiting for a week. I follow Unesco on Twitter and read the news there. We heard of this rally at the Academy of Fine Arts on Monday,” said Flavia. “We have been to so many Unesco heritage sites. We must return for Durga Puja,” Liliam added. Sanat Kr Sinha
Some, like architect Sanjukta Dutta, had no direct link to Puja. “We walk to the pandals. Today we are walking to celebrate the shilpo (art and industry) that is Durga Puja,” she said, praising the discipline that marked the rally that saw no sloganeering, its only sound being the beat of dhak.
The rally had ample colour. Whenever it paused, Chhou artistes enacted the Mahishasuramardini battle sequence, men with dhunuchi and women with boron dala danced, dhakis did a jig and bauls a musical routine. Patachitra painters carried Durga canvases. Bystanders watched, many with mobiles in recording mode.
The rally ended in the unfurling of a 50ft canvas that thanked the Unesco as tickertapes showered gold-and-silver benediction on the Dorina crossing. “We did not want any banner for today’s programme. The inscription, after all, is for Durga Puja in Calcutta,” said theme-maker Sushanta Pal, who was among those who slogged till dawn to put the act together.
Within minutes of the national anthem being sung, the crowd cleared and traffic resumed. “Our responsibility has increased with this recognition,” smiled theme-maker Bhabatosh Sutar.