Durga Puja

On a social, cultural, and artistic level, Durga Puja is perhaps unlike any other religious festival in India. The underlying idea is to celebrate the homecoming of the goddess Durga as she makes her annual visit to her parents’ home with her four children Saraswati, Lakshmi, Ganesh, and Kartik, but in practice, it is the biggest socio-cultural festival of Bengal, cutting across all barriers. It is indeed a cultural heritage that has only grown stronger with every passing year. According to most scholars, Durga Puja in Bengal dates back to the medieval era (at least 11th century AD), though Bengal broke with tradition by performing the ritual in Autumn, whereas it was originally meant for Spring. Apparently, the unseasonable ritual was begun by Lord Rama, hero of the Ramayana, when he performed the puja in Autumn as part of his war against the demon king Ravana. Initially the preserve of rich aristocratic families, Durga Puja in its present form probably began in Bengal in the 16th century, when renowned zamindar Raja Kangsanarayan organised a lavish festival at a cost of nearly Rs 8 lakh at Taherpur in Nadia district towards the end of the century. Other landed aristocrats followed in his footsteps. In 1606, a Puja was organised by Bhabananda Majumdar of Nadia, an ancestor of the celebrated Raja Krishnachandra Roy. Kolkata probably got its first Durga Puja in 1610, courtesy Laxmikanta Majumdar, the founder of the Sabarna Roy Chowdhury family. This family is inextricably linked to the founding of Kolkata, since it was from them that the British East India Company acquired the rights to three villages – Sutanuti, Gobindapur, and Kalikata – which went on to become the city of Calcutta, later Kolkata.