“Santragachhi Kalpataru Sporting, we can’t hear you. Please leave the meeting and enter again.” “Realme5, please rename your Zoom ID.” “Kamar-danga Sishu Sangha, accept your breakout room invite.”
Around 10am on Tuesday, as the 18th CESC The Telegraph True Spirit Puja went underway, the event managers handling the judgment process were in a tizzy. But unlike in the 17 earlier editions, their job was not to send off the judges in cars headed for different pandals across Calcutta and Howrah on time. The challenges this year were technological.
The reason was, in order to ensure safety in a pandemic-hit period, CESC The Telegraph True Spirit Puja (TSP) 2020, in association with David & Goliath, with Friends 91.9FM as radio partner and ABP Ananda as television news partner, had taken a virtual leap. The move is as path-breaking as the launch of the TSP movement itself was, when in 2003 it made puja organisers focus on factors beyond aesthetics — safety and social responsibility.
A website has been launched, truespiritpuja.com, to handle the entire process, from registration to judgment. “When any of the 200-plus participants registered, its name went into a randomiser which automatically put them in groups of eight. Since the visits would be virtual, there was no need to group clubs according to geographical location. Even the judges were assigned randomly,” said an event coordinator.
A puja organiser was to give a virtual walk-through of the pandal to the judges over video conference, answering queries along the way. “We had 128 clubs to visit on Day 1. Our apprehension was a sizeable drop-out given the challenges of this medium. But just a handful had problems and would be accommodated on Wednesday’s roster,” said an official.
The TSP team had coached the pujas in advance. “Some were unaware of the features of smartphones, like flipping the camera to selfie mode, but were keen to learn,” he added.
Judges and puja organisers were both a satisfied lot at the end of Day 1. “Had I been asked to physically visit the pandals, I would have had second thoughts. This was as safe as possible,” said Neville Reay, a teacher at Don Bosco School, Liluah, a preliminary round judge. “After months of online teaching, handling a video conference was easy for me,” he smiled. Even the scoring was done online.
Most organisers handled the walk-through confidently. “This is a wonderful initiative and the wisest under the circumstances,” said Mintu Patra, secretary of Aurobinda Setu Sarbojanin in Ultadanga who sailed though the 15-minute showcase challenge. “I am used to video calls with friends when I go on vacation. That helped,” he smiled.
The preliminary rounds will continue on Wednesday, with the finals slated for Thursday when celebrity judges would log in.
