Glimpses of Durga Puja

Durga Puja is easily the most important festival of the Bengali community of India. Goddess Durga, the ten-armed goddess, is revered as the Mother of the universe and the Power (Shakti) behind the work of creation, preservation, and destruction of the world.

Durga Puja (or the worship of Goddess Durga) is not just a religious event it is also a social and cultural festival, where the community suspends all routine activity to  collectively submerge itself in worship, art, music, dance and of course food. Interestingly, artists put their all to recreate their vision of the Mother and after the celebrations, the idol, a work of art, hard labor and reverence is immersed in the waters. This is believed to symbolize the formlessness of the Supreme Being, impermanence of life and the cycle of birth and re-birth and the importance of non-attachment.

It is almost impossible to capture the enthusiasm, beauty, innovation, vision, passion and creativity of the myriad artists (not to mention the tireless audience) who make Durga Puja such a vibrant festival yet I couldn’t resist sharing a few images:

VV.jpg

Protima.jpg

Just add a dash of color

color

Kali baari.jpg

abagh

A closer look at the skirt material

material

An artist creates a painting of the Goddess on stage during a sitar recital

And the Dhaaki (drummer) without whom Puja could never be Puja

dhaaki

Already waiting for the the next Durga Puja 😀

If, like me, you are hungry for more, feast your eyes on more such gorgeous visual delights – click here

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Dahlia

Email me at mysilverstreaks@gmail.com or tweet me @mysilverstreaks

20 thoughts on “Glimpses of Durga Puja”

  2. The photos are great, Dahlia.

    I’m unfortunate enough to never be part of any such festivals (more reasons to visit India now) I would love to see the beautiful culture and festivals someday soon. Keep bringing more of them on your blog, I enjoy these posts greatly ❤

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    1. And that is putting it mildly 🙂 As one journalist recently put it:

      You can take the craze of Diwali in Delhi, Christmas in London, Summer carnival in Rio, Valentine’s Day in Paris and then add it to the month long madness of Olympic Games or the World Cup and cram all that in a span of 5 days and you still wouldn’t know what you are missing if you haven’t been in Kolkata during the Durga Pujo”

      -Vir Sanghvi

      Just the one state – West Bengal’s Durga Puja industry was estimated to cross 5 billion USD last year.

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  5. Lovely pics. Very interesting detailing on the skirt. Looks like the drummer beats the drum only on one side of it and there is something protruding out from the other side of the drum. Thank you for the description!!

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