Book review 'In the Name of the Goddess': Narayani Namastuté

Kolkata plunges into passionate activity in the weeks leading to Durga Puja which reaches “new heights as the most spectacular, extravagant and publicised event in the city’s calendar” writes art-historian Tapati Guha Thakurta in her book In the Name of the Goddess. The book’s title defines that anything goes in the name of the goddess!

Advertisements wrap the city with a matrimonials — one depicting a dark-skinned investment banker in a Bangla sari offering puja; a ten-armed youngster in jeans displaying mobiles and tablets in every palm; a drummer-boy Gattu announcing the Asian Paints Puja Awards. As the theme-pujas with pandals and pratimas suffuse the city, an entire lane in Hatibagan becomes part of its puja installation, and Khidirpur showcases a colourful tribal village. Harry Potter’s castle in Salt Lake or disasters like the Titanic are also portrayed at puja sites. They may not always confirm to the divine image, but are marks of exaggerated creativity.

As Tapati walks us through the streets of Kolkata in her 10-year research of its biggest celebration, she interviews artists and artisans, designers and decorators, pandal makers and politicians to compile a veritable album of rare photographs and lively anecdotes of the sarbojonin sharadotsav. She describes the Goddess at Shobhabazar, perhaps the earliest Banedi Barir puja when elite households worshipped Maa Durga with pomp and British patronage. Nowadays, the Kumartuli artisans, over-worked and under-privileged, spill into these very same mansions for more space to create the divine pantheon. The Barowari puja (of 12 eminent friends of a locality) was splendid in its heyday, as is its present-day transformation into public funded and corporate-sponsored pujas of the para-clubs. Mega pujas spend over Rs 70 lakh, while the 4,000-strong pujas in Kolkata climb to Rs 123 crore annually.

The first idol with a difference came in 1975 when artist Nirode Majumdar created the Bakulbagan pratima. This became the artists’ thakur, as prominent city artists imaged the Goddess variously. Isha Muhammad, during the rising Babri Masjid agitation, created Durga to demonstrate that art transcends communal strife. Shanu Lahiri’s sepia-toned Goddess became this book’s cover and, this year, Manu Parikh from Baroda presents his Durga at Bakulbagan. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee too played her dual role of artist and protector-goddess of Bengal there one year

Tapati presents a synchronised image of Durga by Naba Kumar Pal and Parimal Pal’s Durga on the Tandava theme to affirm that a club gives a contract to “an artist/designer, who in turn mobilises a work team that could include art students, rural crafts-persons, tribal artists, construction labourers, and usually a hereditary idol maker from Kumartuli or Patuapara.” Design concepts cover not just the Goddess and pandal, but also colour schemes, lighting, and the music to be played there. Unusual materials like soap, razor blades and earthen teacups have been used for “themes”, but traditional idols like the Maddox Square Goddess in daker-saj (golden tinsel-work) still draw huge crowds. Addas (casual chatting) and energetic dhunuchi-dances are subjected to TV cameras for airing.

Tapati ruefully examines the ephemeral quality of this glorious output of art, because almost nothing can be preserved for posterity. Some attempts were made to preserve a few experimental images by Sanatan Dinda, Bhabatosh Sutar and others at the “thakur-der gallery,” a refurbished warehouse by the Lakes. Quite soon, however, “with no maintenance and no visitors, the museum lay in shambles, its open-air displays broken and the grounds covered in slush and stagnant water.” Thus, the Goddess, stripped of divinity, arrives at a Hooghly ghat for immersion. Her decorations and weapons removed, the clay-image hits the water and is ignobly lifted by a crane and dumped onto the other bank. Boy-swimmers wildly scramble to retrieve the head-mask which can be sold back to artisans. Divine art reduces to ritual waste. The organisers are lucky if townships like Siliguri and Chandannagar “buy” and transport their installations for Kali or Jagaddhatri puja to other venues. This book, which so brilliantly documents contemporary history, takes an important step to preserve festival art for the future.

Wherever the Bengalis go, they celebrate what is simply termed the puja. In Delhi, as in Kolkata, there are few Durga temples, two notable ones being Chattarpur Mandir and Chitteshwari Temple, respectively. Permanent temples are usually dedicated to Kali. Yet Durgotsav, from the sixth day of Navratri, is the most significant event for Bengalis. Akal Bodhan is Ram’s “untimely” invocation of Shakti to kill Ravan. She is worshipped with 108 lotuses during the auspicious sondhi puja, lasting a mere half hour. Durga supposedly appears for an infinitesimal moment that a mustard seed rests upon a buffalo’s horn. The Goddess is depicted slaying Mahisasur because the Gods in Heaven created her to destroy evil. She displays all godly weapons invested upon her and her story is told repeatedly in Birendra Krishna Bhadra’s recital of the famous Chandipath — aired in the early morning of Mahalaya.

Poignant is the image of daughter Durga visiting her paternal home with her children for only five days. She must depart for her husband Shiva’s Kailash abode on dashami. Her eyes glimmer with tears during the darpan-bisarjan when the priest mirrors her face in a pot of holy water while he chants his last mantras. Even as Ram kills Ravan on Dasara, Bijoya is celebrated by the married women’s sindur khela and feeding of sweets to the Goddess when they whisper fervently, “Come home again next year!”

In moderate replication of Kolkata’s festival, theme pandals of Delhi have sometimes taken the likeness of Shobhabazar Rajbari, Dakshineshwar Temple and a gigantic mangal kalash in Chittaranjan Park. The first theme puja at Suraj Kund highlighted “Naari-Shakti,” and its award-winning temple complex seamlessly blended five ancient civilisations in architectural glory. But the Mandir Marg Kalibari still ensconces the traditional ek-chala daker-saj Durga for worship. The oldest puja at Kashmere Gate, that has celebrated its centenary, still takes its Goddess to the Yamuna for immersion on a bullock-cart. Timarpur paid tribute to 100 years of Indian cinema in pandal décor and the Matri Mandir puja went into Tibetan mode. Due to environmental concerns, some puja committees now create their own water-tank to immerse the Goddess. In ultimate unison, at home or at “weekend pujas” abroad, the khichuri bhog is served to all, and entertainment programmes continue late into the night to ever-rising footfalls.

Dr Ajanta Dutt teaches English at Deshbandhu College, Delhi University, and is also on the editorial board of a bilingual quarterly, Hindol