Times Square, the heart of New York City, came alive to the beat of dhak and the aroma of incense as the iconic public plaza hosted its first Durga puja last weekend.

Organised by the Bengali Club of USA, a group of devotees of Bangladeshi origin, and the Hindu Community of New York, it was a two-day event that drew a capacity crowd.

“Times Square is the capital of the world. We wanted to showcase our religious and cultural heritage before the global community,” said Pallab Sarkar, the club’s member-secretary, who hails from Mymensingh in Bangladesh.

The idea was the brainchild of Dinesh Mojumder, the club president who settled in the US 10 years ago. “It was my dream to host Durga puja at this spot,” said Mojumder, a resident of Queens borough, who had initiated another Durga puja in 2022 at Diversity Plaza in Jackson Heights, the most ethnically diverse neighbourhood of New York.

“It was New York’s first open-air Durga puja that I started after the Unesco heritage recognition,” he pointed out, referring to the enlistment of Durga puja of Calcutta on Unesco’s intangible cultural heritage of humanity in 2021.

That puja is from where a five-foot ekchala idol, made in India, travelled to Times Square. The organisers were allotted about 5,000sq ft of space, which was cordoned off and in which two stages were put up. One was for the idol and the other was for cultural performances.

Actress Payel Sarkar and singers Bisakh Jyoti and Deep Chatterjee of Zee Sa Re Ga Ma Pa fame were flown over from Calcutta.

“We had permission to seat about 200 people. Our tickets sold out so fast that we could not accommodate everyone. Close to 2,000 people turned up, with many standing outside the cordon,” said Sarkar.

Several people had even flown over from other states, like Florida and California, to participate in the puja, staying overnight in hotels. Other than Bangladeshis, visitors included devotees of Indian, Nepalese, Guyanese and some of Pakistani origin, too. New York, Sarkar pointed out, has a strong Guyanese Hindu community that runs several temples.

The organisers take pride in the fact that no police protection was provided.

The priest was a local resident who works at the LaGuardia airport.

For the two-day puja, the organisers ran up a bill of about $100,000. “Nothing is free here. We had to seek permission from the building, sanitation, fire, police, city and environment departments. Plus, we served prasad to as many visitors as we could. Much of the funding came from donations from us, members,” Mojumder said.

This year as many as 30 pujas are taking place in New York. “But this was the first puja to take place in Manhattan (the borough which houses Wall Street and Broadway). And we plan to continue the tradition,” he said.