Remembering the Pujos

Good times always bring back fond memories.

Pujo's in Kolkata have their own unmatched charm. For a rational  mind it will look like 10 days of relentless incongruity where the otherwise inconsequential people collectively assume a state of drunken happiness. All one thinks, talks, sees is the celebration around- the bright lights, the creative pujo-pandals, multitudes around in their best set of clothes, the food, the fun rides. 

To truly understand the significance of pujo, one not only needs to witness the pujo in Kolkata, one also has to live in Kolkata through the non-pujo days to see the transformation the city undergoes suddenly!

I cannot match the Bengali nostalgia for Pujo but still in my own way I still remember and miss the celebration. 

I would have so loved to have an old Pujo picture on my blog, but just as I dug into my pictures folder, I realized I accidentally deleted all the folders with names starting with I onward therefore no more Kol pics on my laptop.

I next thought of searching my phone for some beautiful Bengali Pujo text messages although I really doubted that I would have anything saved from 2008-2010. I still remember few words of those messages, not sure if I can retrieve them with Google search. 

Next I dug into my old loyal diary hoping to find something preserved there. Thankfully you can trust yourself for some afflictions without fail. Found a note from 9th Oct, 2008. Pujo that year must have been earlier than  this year because this note was about immersion. The last ritual after all the festivities.

'In some ways, acceptance of transience rests on the way one treats the word 'immersion'. You immerse in joy as well as in grief. the joy of creation lies in accepting this duality, in understanding that any work of art or even emotional grooming blossoms in  a state of detached attachment!

Immersion takes a quick dip!

The whole of creation, its beauty all its splendor everything is transient. With as much as a blink of eye, you can gain all, you stand to lose all. Just have the heart to rejoice..'- newspaper article (TOI or Telegraph)

This note suddenly appeared more relevant than anything else I had read in quite sometime. Each one of us have our own ways to handle the 'immersions'.. Its beautiful to think about the symbolism of immersing the deity in the waters of the Ganges. To let her go whence she came from with just a promise that she'll come back again with all the fanfare next year..in another form and with another story. (I learnt that there is always a different story and a theme associated with how she will come back next year!)