CHANGING TIMES : DURGA PUJA

In this post I shall relive a few fond memories related to the Pujas and Puja vacations of my childhood.

Pujas meant so much fun. It meant a month long vacation in school. It meant very few holiday homework, no examination after reopening (at least till primary school. After that high school onwards this happy situation changed, puja vacations meant preparing for second terminals!) Pujas came in with an added brownie.Going out shopping with my mother.When I was a little kid, I would go shopping to New Market, Treasure Island with my mother and Mamoni.Ma would pick me up from school and we would head towards the shopping zone of Calcutta. Those days there were no huge swanky shopping malls. The box elevator at SreeRam Arcade was a thing to gape at. And I would definitely stare at it in wonder.Shopping meant coaxing Ma to let me buy a pair of dungarees,inspired by Kuch Kuch Hota Hain( although I never much wore it),it meant sitting at the steps of Treasure Island eating chow mein prepared by Mamoni..Those days were fun…Today there's no time to go shopping to New Market and Lindsay Street.I have to settle with Gariahat, Dakshinapan and at most South City Mall

Pujas meant taking a bath quickly in the morning and wearing new dresses.Often mismatched accessories would follow.Pujas meant taking Ummi’s(my grandmother) hand and walking to Phase 1 puja pandal and offering anwatching Didi draw the programme schedule in chart papers to be put up at the  pandal and then looking at it in wonder.Didi no longer makes the posters.Some other kid's "Didi" surely makes them.Pujas meant devouring the stories in Sharadiya Anandamela Pujashonkhya. Enjoying every line of Kakababu’s adventures,Feluda comics, Pandab Goenda,Arjun’s adventures…

When I grew up a bit,in Class 11, I first went out with my school friends on Shasthi. Sukanya, Roma, Kasturi, Mouli, Ritwika.

I still remember on that year we went to Mandarin. And every year after that it became a ritual to go to Hatari every Shasthi.Our Shasthi day outs were fantastic.Pandal hopping.invariably getting wet,short sessions of adda at Maddox Square,me and Roma getting lost and waliking all the way from Maddox Square to Gariahat(!!),meeting friends invariably at Maddox or at Hatari…this year will be different.Only three of us will probably go out.Times change,everyone’ s getting busier by the day.The small little fun moments that we once had have become memories.Today even Ummi is not there anymore. I will definitely go to the pandal and offer anjali.But I will miss her surely…

Earlier Puja vacations meant sneaking up with a storybook when Ummi would watch tv and pretending to sleep when when she would come down to check on me. Puja vacations meant marathon phone call sessions with Madhurima,discussing anything and everything under the sun..These days we only text.No more do we have those phone calls.Time flies,time changes.Memories try to hold me back,but I got to move on.This is life…