Themes are no longer the preserve of community pujas. This year, a household Basanti puja in Salt Lake had one.
“This is the sixth year of our Annapurna puja. After back-to-back accidents in the family, we decided to upscale our puja this time. While last year too the idol was made by a well-known idol-maker, this year I engaged a Puja theme-maker for the pandal,” said Aritra Sen, a resident of AK Block.
The theme chosen was sewa (service). “I thought of the pice hotels which have been serving meals at pocket-friendly rates to the poor for generations. Those cooking there are Annapurna too,” said theme-maker Manas Das, who will be in charge of Puja pandals at Dum Dum Park Tarun Sangha and Chakraberia Sarbojanin. The inside walls of the pandal had niches, shaped like kulungis, with collages of images from such hotels or of patachitras depicting the domesticity of Shiva-Parvati’s life.
In Dum Dum Park, Puja theme-maker Anirban Das invoked Basanti for the first time. “I cannot do the autumnal Durga puja elaborately as I am busy with my work at the puja pandals then. So I chose to start puja in the spring edition of Navaratri.”
An idol carved out of a two-tonne block of stone was ordered from Bhubaneshwar, seven metals were melded and cast out of stone at Nabadweep and the eighth metal, mercury, was added by a monk from Ramakrishna Mission later. The ashtadhatu idol, called Sundari, even has 64 yoginis carved on the stone base, said Das, who will be in charge of Newtown Sarbojanin, Dum Dum Park Bharat Chakra and a puja in Dakshindari among others.