The gathering of the clans

This year, the festive celebrations are something to look forward to. Various communities in the City are adding finishing touches to their pandals and finalising their itinerary for the Durga Puja and Navaratri.

Communities like Bengalis, Oriyas, Gujaratis and Biharis are celebrating the festival in a grand fashion. While the Gujarati community in the City has started the garba and dandiya dances, others will hold the celebrations between October 21 and 24.

Harshad Raval, a member of the ‘Shree Indiranagar Gujarati Association’, says that the festivities have started right from the first day of Navaratri.

“We have organised a Navaratri festival, which is complete with dandiya and garba. It is being held at the Gopalan Signature Mall on Old Madras Road, throughout the ten days of the festival. To add variety to the festivities, we have Gujarati cuisine as well as competitions of various kinds. For instance, we will pick the person in the best traditional attire, the best performer — in both dandiya and garba — have a rangoli competition and an aarti thali-decoration competition,” he informs.

Entry into the dandiya and garba festival is through passes. The ‘Oriya Cultural Association’ is organising the Durga Puja at Shri Jagannath Temple in Agara, on Sarjapur Road.

For a change, the community is concentrating only on the puja rather than the cultural aspects.  “This is the first time that we are holding the puja on a temple premises. Another Oriya community is organising a Durga Puja at Sahakaranagar, where they will be inviting Oriya performers,” explains Utkal Ranjan Mohanty, vice president of the ‘Oriya Cultural Association’.

The Bengali community is going all out to make the most of the four days of the Durga Puja. The celebrations for most associations will start on October 21 (shashti). As per the tradition, the festival will be ushered in with a anandomela, which is like a pot luck
where the members will bring various dishes cooked at home.

“After the anandomela, we will have the cultural programme in the evening on saptami, ashtami and navami. We have celebrities like Rupam Islam and Rupankar Bagchi coming for live performances. We also have handicraft stalls and cuisine from the state,” says Bidyut Kumar Chowdhury, the membership secretary of ‘SORRBA’.

The members of ‘Koramangala Durga Puja’ prefer to keep the festivities open for all and have a line up of events planned for Bangaloreans.

“The main highlight of our festivities is the cultural programme. We will have bhog on saptami, ashtami and navami in the morning. Along with that, we will have several competitions like dhunuchi naach and a painting competition for children. We have bands like ‘Crosswinds’ and artistes like Sapan Basu, Saptarishi Mukherjee and Haimanti Shukla coming. There will also be cultural programmes on all the three days,” explains Sudipto Das, from the association.

Others associations, in areas like Kanakpura Road and R T Nagar, will also see many cultural performances.

The Bihari community in the City will also celebrate Dasara at R T Nagar.