Durga Puja is more than the worshipping of the Goddess and four days of fun and festivity. It is also an opportunity for the organisers of the pujas to create awareness about social causes and topical issues, either through the themes they adopt or the practises they implement. And Manicktalla Chaltabagan Lohapatty Durga Puja has always been in the foreground for this.
The north Kolkata puja, which was inaugurated by Trinamul Congress MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Trinamul MLA Vivek Gupta, councillor Minakshi Gupta and Supriya Jaiswal from the puja committee, has made Nature its theme this year.
“This year we are going to worship Ma Durga as personifying ‘beauty of nature’. Only natural materials and ingredients have been used to prepare the throne of ‘Bodhon’,” said a committee spokesperson.
(L-R) Trinamul Congress MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay, councillor Minakshi Gupta, Trinamul MLA Vivek Gupta and Supriya Jaiswal from the puja committee, at the inauguration.
The theme for the Puja is “Eternal beauty — Nature’s creation, An infallible creation by the Creator — Brahma”. It aims to celebrate Nature in all its vibrancy, “replete with boundless beauty, variety, aroma, colours, flora, fauna and the eternal youthfulness of the Earth”.
The pandal, made like a treehouse, entirely out of bamboo, and the goddess made in the colour of clay, are the highlights, but not the only ones. Like every year, the Manicktalla Chaltabagan Lohapatty Durga Puja Committee is taking the lead in terms of social responsibility, whether it is in helping the disadvantaged to have a Puja to remember or to make sure pandal-hoppers are safe on the premises.
(Left) The Durga idol and (right) the interior of the Manicktalla Chaltabagan Lohapatty Durga Puja pandal.
“This year also we are committed to helping the underprivileged and have donated water geysers and water heater kettles to the HIV+ children, donated tables and chairs to the marginalised children and helped the community in whatever way we can,” said Sundeep Bhutoria, chairman, Manicktalla Chaltabagan Lohapatty Durga Puja Committee.
Keeping the pandemic in mind, the pandal has been made a no-go zone for those without masks. There will be automatic temperature checks, provisions for hand sanitisation and hand-washing facilities and extra masks, along with well-equipped first-aid centres with doctors and ambulances.
For this committee, Durga Puja is not just about the pandal and the pratima, but about the people.