Durgotsab, GK-2, organized its 33rd Durga Puja celebration at Uday Shankar Park, GK-2, this year from 20th to 24th October‘23. Starting from a modest budget way back in the 1990s, the ever increasing generous contributions by the group members has enabled the forum to consistently upgrade the standards of Durga Puja every year.
The forum follows a different theme every year. This year the focus was on the rich ancient Bengali architecture dating back to the 19th century and early 20th century. The Pandal was accordingly constructed to resemble Bengali Zamindar‘s house of that British era that was influenced by the French and Italian architectures. The impressive colonnades complemented the Milani flooring comprising black and white checks. While the Durga Pratima (idol) was made locally, the ‘Saaj‘ or the dress adorned by the Goddess Durga was stitched at Shantipur in the remote interiors of West Bengal, which is renowned for weaving Bengal handloom sarees.
The enthusiastic and passionate forum members undertook a trip there to supervise the making of the dress. Once the dress came here, it took some high spirited group members, led by a Punjabi lady Ms Rashi Kakkar, two nights to drape it on the idol of the Goddess Durga. Around 10 K people visited the Pandal over three days and they were served ‘Bhog‘ or ‘Prasad‘ by the organizers free of charge. The evening Aarti at the Pandal was another major attraction where the musical instrument called ‘Dhak‘ was played to capture the mood of the people by the Drum beaters (Dhakis) who came all the way from Bengal.
The food stalls put up at the Pandal also managed to draw in huge crowds. Our fast progressing cosmopolitan culture has enabled this major festival of Bengal to become equally popular among non-Bengalis as well. This is borne out not just by the huge footfalls of the local non-Bengali population to the Durgotsab pandal, but also to the fact that about 60% of the forum members are non-Bengalis. We hope the divine blessings of Goddess Durga stay with us at all times
