Be it Bengal, Hyderabad or Maharashtra, the enthusiasm of the Bengali community is alike when it comes to celebrating the Durga Puja. At Pingali Venkat Rami Reddy hall in Hyderabad the Bengalis have started the Puja with dhoom dham. In Hyderabad like the Ganesh Pandals youth have installed the Durga Mata idols in most of the lanes and bylanes.
The community in Mumbai — ranging from goldsmiths to businessmen to film stars — is preparing with full festive zeal have welcomed Goddess Durga as the much-awaited Puja starts .
The half-a-million-plus Bengalis, spread over Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad, will perform the Durga Puja at over 100 ‘Sarvajanin’ (public) mandals during October 7-11.
“The various highlights — based on themes including environment conservation, Swachha Bharat Mission, achievements of Indian athletes like P.V. Sindhu, Sakshi Malik and Deepa Karmakar at Rio 2016 Olympics , besides other cultural programmes and inviting specially-abled children from a nearby orphanage for the puja and Bhog — would make the puja celebrations complete.
While among the oldest Durga Puja will be held in a traditional manner by the goldsmiths and artisans in Kalbadevi, south Mumbai, the most visited venue will be Dadar Bengal Club’s puja at Shivaji Park in Dadar West.Then, there will be glamour touch to the lavish individual Durga Pujas organised by various Bengali Bollywood personalities in the western suburbs. These are thronged by Bengalis and non-Bengalis in large numbers during the four-day celebrations.
Playback singer Abhijeet Bhattacharya will hold his 21st celebrations at the Lokhandwala Sarvajanin Durgotsav Samiti, and former Bollywood actor Biswajeet Chatterjee, 80, will organise celebrations in Andheri, as per his decades-old practice.
The famous Mukherjee family, comprising Tanuja, Kajol, Rani and others will also have their celebrations in the Tulip Star Hotel at Juhu.
“Wherever Bengalis go and settle, they start Durga Puja. In Mumbai, the celebrations are now over a century old and growing in terms of participation and opulence every year,” according to Biplab Ghosh, President of Pragati Mandal, an association of the huge Bengali community in Palghar’s Vasai town.
As always, the dazzling Durga Puja in Vasai is attended by Bengalis as well as non-Bengalis — for the religious, cultural and culinary attractions, where four associations of Bengalis flourish.
The Banga Maitri Sansad’s 69th North Bombay Sarbajanin Durga Puja in Santacruz East will have its traditional homely puja festival, says its general secretary Subir Datta.
Mumbaikars throng the marquees to admire the stunningly designed, decked and decorated idols of Goddess Durga, join the puja aartis and enjoy the vegetarian and non-vegetarian Bengali-style cuisines available in street-stalls format at different venues.
