Durga Puja fever grips Kolkata as pandal hoppers share candid moments from the city
28 Sept 2017 1:20 PM IST28 Sept 2017 1:20 PM IST
Pandal hoppers from Kolkata share their favourite shots as the city gets transformed into a gallery celebrating religion and art
Pandal hoppers from Kolkata share their favourite shots as the city gets transformed into a gallery celebrating religion and art. (Subhrajit Biswas)- Kumari Puja, or the worship of a little girl at a Kolkata residential puja. (Photo: Sudeep Yadav)
- Tarun Dal Dum Dum Park perfectly captured the essence of thematic pandals with a semi-traditional idol. (Photo: Shruti Chomal)
- Durga is not always the 10-armed-warrior goddess as shown in popular culture. Sometimes She is the benevolent two-armed consort to Shiva who blesses all with bounty and luck. Though not as prevalent as the usual iconography, certain houses, like this one in North Kolkata worship the goddess in this form. (Photo: Sushroota Sarkar)
- Rani Rashmoni's household puja is one of the most iconic pujas from Kolkata. Founder of the Dakshineswar Kali Temple and a pillar of strength in the male dominated society, Rani Rashmoni started Durga Puja at her S.N. Banerjee Road residence. (Photo: Sushroota Sarkar)
- Entering its 75th year Ekdalia Evergreen, a popular Kolkata puja has perfectly recreated a South Indian temple. The picture perfectly captures the stark contrast between reality and art as the towering marquee stands between a concrete jungle. (Photo: Rabin Gupta)
- Central light structure at a Kolkata community puja. Entirely handcrafted it was the focus for the marquee and showed dexterous craftsmanship. (Photo: Atreya Paul)
- HB block Puja Committee of Salt Lake City, Kolkata submissively provides high priority to the real essence of Pujo-Vidhi and consequentially you do get to visualize the pomp and feel the divinity. The magnificent chandeliers are the centric attractions inside the marquee apart from the traditional idol. (Photo: Debarghya Bhattacharya)
- Bhawanipore, Kolkata's Abasar Puja Committee has created the entire marquee using recycled colour glass. The idol has a serenuty etched on her face and can be xeen standing atop a giant buffalo head. (Photo: Rahul Arora)
- The Goddess is worshipped as Katyani in Santipur's Goswami household. A 350-year-old puja, the goddess has two large hands in the front and her other hands eight hands are comparitively smaller in size. The goddes only holds a trident while the idols of Ganesh and Kartik are interchanged unlike popular culture. (Photo: Sudeb Goswami)
- One of the oldest community pujas in Kolkata, the marquee houses a gigantic traditional idol whole crown in itself is a whopping 8 feet tall. (Photo: Arijit Majumder)
- Chorbagan in Kolkata created the entire marquee using wooden frames.The play of light and shadows created an ephemeral effect. (Photo: Atreya Paul)
- Age is just a number..Senior citizens clicking selfie at Barisha Sarbajonin Puja in Kolkata (Photo: Priyanka Dutta)
- A century old puja that has recently shifted to Birati Dutta Bari for the last five years, the puja sees youngsters thronging to do all the necessary arrangements and an atmosphere of geniality pervades throughout. (Photo: Sudeep Yadav)
- Kumartuli, Park has focused on the idol. Since Kumartuli is associated with idol making, they wanted to highlight the overall, craftsmanship of the people. The idol has been carved intricately and shows a lot of finesse in terms of craftsmanship (Photo: Atreya Paul)
- The tradional Durga Puja of Sovabazar Rajbari is one of the oldest pujas of Kolkata.Started by Raja Nabakrishna Deb in 1757.Some of the famous invitees were Lord Clive,Warren Hastings,Swami Vivekananda and Rabindranath Tagore. If you notice carefully in the picture,Durga's Vahana is a horse.A Vahana in Sanskrit means which carries or pulls.Normally we see the lion as the Vahana of Durga.But in some traditional Pujas the Vahana is a horse such as in this one.It is believed that the British Raj has played a big influence behind this. (Photo: Subhrajit Biswas)
Pandal hoppers from Kolkata share their favourite shots as the city gets transformed into a gallery celebrating religion and art. (Subhrajit Biswas)
Pandal hoppers from Kolkata share their favourite shots as the city gets transformed into a gallery celebrating religion and art
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