In the split-second that follows your car suddenly halting, a lot happens. First, you freeze at the thought of what is about to happen. Then it happens. All the vehicles behind you start honking at the same time. The drivers of all the vehicles start abusing your driver, or you, if you are driving. It does not matter if it is another vehicle from the opposite direction or an untimely traffic signal that has stopped you. Everything becomes suspended, and the blast from the street enters your brain and kills it.
But we do not, in this city, call it violence. We call it normal. Which explains a lot of other things that go on in this city and are considered normal, till they break us. But I have one question. If people are in this killer hurry, where do they go? To save what? The most visible improvement in the city has been the growing number of cafés. After thinking long and hard, I have come to a few conclusions. Matthew Arnold had spoken about the “sick hurry and divided aims” of his time. In our case, the hurrying are quite focused and not all of them are food delivery agents.
Last week, the rush was to see Chandrayaan-3 landing. The event brought the moon back into our vision, obscure for long behind the city’s grand, glittering multi-storeyeds, which, one feels, can be spotted from the moon more easily than the moon from here. But for months, before the lunar expedition, the city was preoccupied with another extra-terrestrial event. In more than one way: it is as extra as it is terrestrial. We have been rushing to khnuti-pujos the last few months. In the process, we have rescued this ritual, as we have the moon, from obscurity, but with different motives and different implications.
Khnuti-pujo, even a few years ago, was a non-event. The ceremony, performed most noticeably for Durga Puja, involved the consecration of the first bamboo pole (khnuti, which also means support) that would be used in the pandal. To an average Calcuttan, it meant a necessary, but matter-of-fact, ceremony that marked the setting up of the pandal and was best taken care of by the Puja committee, while the rest could concentrate on the fun. No longer. Now every Durga Puja in every lane has celebrated or is about to celebrate a khnuti-pujo.
The trend started from June. It has had a few major consequences on our social life. First, it has extended the Durga Puja by four months. If we somehow can start the khnuti-pujo in November this year, we will have Durga Puja the whole year. That way all our problems will be solved, because, as everyone knows, during Durga Puja we forget all our problems. Khnuti-pujo may be about the khnuti, but now what it really needs is a panel of politicians and celebrities — not only film and television actors but also vloggers. A long period of khnuti-pujo will create year-round employment for them, which is certain to contribute to the city’s GDP. Khnuti-pujo looks best on Instagram.
Third, the reinvention of khnuti-pujo subtly encourages another popular trend: that of reinventing obscure rituals in general. Recently, a Bengali TV serial brought back to life a ritual called “sotin-knata mor”, the practice of asking for the death of a co-wife (sotin). So many years ago Satyabati, in Ashapurna Debi’s Pratham Pratisruti, had recoiled from such a thought. But now pretty actresses are chanting merrily for the death of another woman.
One has a feeling that there may be a call for the revival of sati soon. How good it will look on Insta. Even as I write this, I can hear a woman’s voice shrieking in the serial on the TV in the next room: “Injection e bish bhore ghure berachchhe” — someone is going around carrying a syringe full of poison. But this is ok. This is a perfectly normal household activity. Just wondering if that person is honking, too, while brandishing the 'injection'.
