Residents of Panache, in Mahishbathan, performed their first Kali Puja this year and marked the debut with a slew of cultural activities that they hold every year in the run-up to the big night.
On October 21, there was a kalash-decorating competition that drew women and teenagers. “This was the fourth year of our Diwali celebrations and this time we replaced our rangoli-making contest with the kalash as the same few residents seemed to be winning every time,” said Mala Maheshwari of the Panache Utsav Committee.
Participants used paints, stones, shells, coconuts, colourful cloth, leaves and flowers to embellish the auspicious pot. “All the entries were beautiful but what set my one apart was that I stuck to tradition,” said the winner Ankita Biyani, a jewellery designer. “I used the auspicious colour red, rice and moong dal grains and placed a coconut on top along with mango leaves.”
The winning kalash was kept outside her apartment thereafter, along with the rangoli her kids had made.
Actors dressed as deities for the Samudra Manthan play. The Telegraph
The next day was a stage presentation by women and children depicting the samudra manthan episode from Vishnu Purana. Soma Jain, chairperson of the utsav committee, had scripted the play and Garima Agarwal and Shreeja Jain directed it in four days flat. “We wanted children to know this important episode in our mythology,” said Jain. “In fact, even the adults have all read or heard these stories but forgotten elements of it. Enacting it jogged their memories.”
Minutes before taking stage a drama ensued in the greenroom when they realised they didn’t have a mountain to churn the ocean with. “We had asked the dressers to come with a mountain prop but they landed up with thermocol cut-outs that were fragile,” said Jain. “So we got a big dustbin and wrapped it with a brown bedsheet to make it look like a hill. We placed it on a trolley that someone’s washing machine was kept on so it would turn when the actors churned it.”
One of the entries in the kalash contest. The Telegraph
To keep the performance snag-free, dialogues and music were pre-recorded and played while nearly 50 actors enacted and danced it out. Eight-year-old Aadhya Diwan and Yashvi Sudrania played the narrators, lip-syncing to the lyrics and unfolding the story. Tina and Sandeep Bagrodia played Laksmi-Vishnu and Mukta Mishra won accolades as Mohini, who appeared towards the end and distributed the elixir to the devas.
On the eve of Diwali, women also performed an elaborate aarti together.
Did you celebrate the festive season with greater gusto this year? Write to The Telegraph Salt Lake, 6 Prafulla Sarkar Street, Calcutta 700001 or email to saltlake@abp.in