Some prudent visitors preferred to admire the pandal and idol from their car, auto or rickshaw, without stepping out. Blocks like EC, GD, AB and AD offered such drive-in pandals, provided one had the patience to join the slow-moving traffic outside their gates.
“I know cars are slowing down here but I am not stopping them,” said the traffic policeman posted on the main road outside AD Block. “This is better than crowding at the pandal and spreading coronavirus. Puja is a matter of sentiment so I’m allowing people to stop for a few seconds, fold their hands or click the pandal from their cars.”
The AD Block pandal promoted folk art and items like gamchha and kulo and boasted of attractive lighting after dark.
New Town had several pandals that were visible from the streets outside, “but these pandals were too simple to draw crowds,” said Subhankar Ghosh, a toto driver there. “A few people asked us to drive them over to their own block’s pandal but no more. Beyond that, they want to see grandeur and creativity. And for that it was either Balaka and Sreebhumi or Balaka and Salt Lake pujas.”
saltlake@abp.in