After a year’s break, Malika Malancha resumed Kumari puja on the occasion of Durga Navami. This year, five-year-old Shanvi Singh was the chosen one, getting worshiped as a living form of the Mother Goddess and offering benediction to neighbours many times her age with her little hands.
“We choose girls in the age group of four to seven years. We do not look at caste or creed or community. The girl just needs to be old enough to sit away from the mother without crying for one hour,” smiled Kakoli Saha, a resident of Mallika Malancha Apartment Owners’ Association.
And Shanvi Singh who turned five in end-September was a perfect fit. Her parents hail from Bihar and saw Kumari puja for the first time at the complex. “We are in New Town for four years now. In our state, we have Kanya puja on the ninth day of Navratri when nine virgins are worshiped together. Bhog is offered to them and they get gifts. But here it is much more elaborate, the way her feet were washed and alta applied,” said her mother Shivanjali Singh.
Little Shanvi loved the attention. “She asked me after the puja whether she would get any special powers and if more hands would come out of her like Durga Ma’s,” laughed Shivanjali. “I told her Durga Ma had come to her as she had been a good girl.”
The Kumari puja had started in 2016, two years after Durga puja commenced at the complex. “I had started the puja. In the third year, the priest saw my daughter Hridika playing in the pandal and decided to worship her as Kumari. She loves make-up and dressing up, and was thrilled to get to wear a red sari and floral ornaments,” said Mitali Biswas.
After she did her turn for three years, the baton passed in 2019. “Even this year, she asked on Navami if she could be the one. I told her to let others get a chance,” Mitali smiled.