Durga Puja trip to Kolkata this year is a story of ayes and nays.
In this "new normal" world, there is no frantic pandal-hopping, no clicking of pics, no eating out, no setting up 'get-together' meets with different groups of friends, no queuing up for 'bhog', no Panchami evening visit to see 'lighting' in pandals.
Yes, family lunches and dinners are there, along with Google Duo meets with friends, online darshan, app-based Puja Parikrama and live telecast of pujo in YouTube.
But I am missing the real Puja spirit, which has disappeared amid raging debates over social distancing in Puja pandals and too many stories of economic hardship in the Covid era. The world has changed, perhaps for ever, and even the desperately-trying- to-act-normal crowd, wearing matching masks with their attire, can feel it.
I, like many others, neither belong to the group of people who get upset that Durga Puja for most Bengalis is more about celebration than rituals, nor to those who view it through the complex prism of Aryans/non-Aryans. For us, it is a symbol of nostalgia, childhood memories, power of women, social inclusion, harmony, and pure, unadulterated happiness.
Happiness. A word which sounds like a joke to many people in the planet today.
Still, let's hope everyone will find it soon.
(Pic: a small terracotta statue of the goddess kept at my sister's house)
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