JOIN USIt is almost like being in Kolkata. Durga Puja pandals in Delhi vie every year in putting up the best show, even importing the traditional dhaak drummers from Bengal. You don’t have to be a Bengali to enjoy the festivities
Why a French goddess should adorn a Durga Puja pandal has no answer. But at Safdarjung Enclave’s Matri Mandir Durga Puja, she was there. The committee had decided eight years ago that their 50th anniversary had to be ‘big’. So along with the glittering Durga idol stood a silver statue of Marianne, a symbol of the French Republic.
Visitors were confused until it was disclosed that it was 'World Peace' that the Matri Mandir committee wanted to depict. It was the ‘Palais Garnier’ or the National Opera House in Paris that they constructed as the facade of their pandal.
This theme was to condemn terrorism in the world through condemning the 2015 Paris attacks, according to Debashis Saha, general secretary of the puja committe.
They had apparently started saving way back for the Rs 1 crore they needed for the 2016 Puja, putting aside some of the money they get every year from corporates and individuals. The year’s puja cost the committee 25 per cent more than last year, according to Saha.
The one-crore bit has been the buzz amongst pandal hoppers this Puja season.Delhiites – Bengalis and others – hop from pandal to pandal during Durga Puja to see how grand a pandal is. There is competition of sorts between puja committees in Delhi-NCR over pandal themes and the Durga sculptures. At these pandals, religious piety meets ostentatious display, fuelled by competition. All this comes at a cost, of course.
About Rs 4 lakh seems enough to set up a grand Durga idol that is between 13 to 15 feet tall – Arambagh Puja committee on Panchkuian Marg spent this amount, as did Matri Mandir. But it is the cultural programmes and the pandal décor which bring in the footfall, and much of the budget is devoted to that.
Visitors at Matri Mandir appreciated the committee’s effort in putting up replica of European paintings, but they were clueless about the theme. The general secretary of the organising committee was himself unaware of what the replicas of painting from the Byzantine Empire depicted.
The display was also misleading. The replica of a portrait of Flavio Belasario of the Byzantine Empire feeding a homeless was signed as ‘Flavio Belasario’. Belasario was not the painter, but a military hero who is the subject of the painting.
The nitpicking aside, their puja pandal is a grand one – and that’s what really matters. Saha says the Durga idol is created by Pradip Rudra Pal the maker of the biggest budget Durga Puja idol in Kolkata.
Bollywood playback singer Kavita Krishnamurthy and Bangladeshi singer ‘James’ are the biggest draw this Durga Puja at Matri Mandir. And the committee was also proud to announce that their puja was inaugurated by Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah and Babul Supriyo, Minister of State for Heavy Industries.
Eco-friendly puja pandals have been in vogue for the past few years. But Matri Mandir could not stick to that theme this time. Their pandal was made of thermocol.
But puja committees at Arambagh and Cooperative Ground in Chittaranjan Park are following green principles. “Once you make a name you have to keep it,” says Shubro Bhattacharjee from the organising committee of Cooperative Durga Puja at Chittaranjan Park.
Last year, Cooperative won the Best Pandal (Delhi-NCR) award from a newspaper and the first prize for an eco-friendly pandal from Bengal Association, Delhi. And they win some award every year for their pandal.
They received a little over Rs 1 lakh they receive as reward money last time, says Bhattacharjee and complains that orporates are not interested in funding Durga Puja pandals any more.
Sony, which sponsored their puja almost every year in the past and put up a stall in the pandal, did not join this year, says Bhattacharjee. This time, the committee has got many small companies to sponsor them. There are no large hoardings. Instead the committee has put up an LCD screen which runs ads by different sponsors.
While competition pushed Matri Mandir into creating something which at least the purists wouldn’t appreciate, at the the Cooperative pandal it looks like they have put their budget to some good use.
The inner panels of the pandal are created with recycled waste products. "This year’s main eco-friendly substance was madur-mats made from madur reed (Cyperus Tegetum and C Pangorie). These reeds grow exclusively in West Bengal,” says Bhattacharjee.
The aesthetics of the Durga marquee made of mud and the large swan statues made of madur were appreciated by many.
There are no big names at the cultural programmes at this pandal, but there is still a big rush. Their pandal gets over one lakh visitors every year, says Bhattacharjee. This year the security has been increased, he says.
Competition does not always have to be about the aesthetics and the cost. So to be a notch above the rest, the Cooperative had deployed six e-rickshaws to pick and drop senior citizens.
Long preparation
“To have a successful Durga Puja you have to plan for a year,” says Abhijit Bose from Arambagh Puja Committee. “From April onwards we start deciding about Durga Puja,” he says. “Which artistes should come, what will be the theme, all this takes a lot of time.”
He had to make four or five visits to Kolkata to meet different people to ask them to entertain at Arambagh Puja. “The flights also cost a good amount,” he says.
The temples which hold Durga Puja don’t have to pay for space, but pujas organised in places like Arambagh in Panchkuian Marg and the Cooperative have to pay for that too. The expenditure runs into lakhs per day.
Bose says this year Amrambagh’s sponsorship went up to Rs 48 lakh, but he had to pay nearly Rs 2 lakh from his pocket to keep the puja park for two more days. “The artistes who come have to be given rooms in expensive hotels and there are many minor expenses,” he says.
“Last year we also had a budget deficit of over a lakh because we got the permission for utilising the park late, and we had to construct the pandal faster. So we deployed more men,” says Bose.
“We literally have to beg before people every year to have this puja,” he says. The park belongs to the Central Public Works Department and Horticulture Department of the Ministry of Urban Development and they often create hurdles, he says.
This year, the committee roped in the Vishwa Hindu Parishad to help obtain the clearance, he says. “We have been doing Durga Puja in this park for the past 28 years. Now this place should be earmarked for this. The VHP is helping us with getting permission.”
The Arambagh theme this year is ‘In Search of Roots’. The pandal is decorated with jute artwork along with Madhubani paintings under the direction of Tapan Bose, a National Award winner for jute art. Lost art forms of Bengal such as Baul, Chhau, Gambhira, Jatra and Kavigaan will be performed during the puja.
“The condition of the jute industry in India is poor today. Over 40 lakh farmers and nearly four lakh mill workers depend on the jute industry for their livelihood. We are trying to create awareness about the dying jute industry,” says Bose.
The artists who make the pandal and give shape to a puja committee’s ideas come from West Bengal every year. It takes around two months to make the idol and one month to make the pandal. The assistant artists and the labourers get up to Rs 5,000 per month, says Bose. Some artists work at more than one pandal.
Bhattacharjee says that since Cooperative puja wins something every year, some of their artists were borrowed by other puja samities this year.