In Search of the Goddess

FEW THINGS are more spurious in the cultural politics of everyday Bengali life than claiming as an adult that as a child one thought Durga Puja had to do with the girl who dies in Pather Panchali. The film, not the novel; since most literate Bengalis across generations see Satyajit Ray’s masterpiece long before they come of age to read Bibhutib­hushan Bandyopadhyay’s. That’s not to take anything away from either Ray or Bibhutibhushan but to iterate the paradox at the heart of the festival that defines Bengali identity. The secularisation of Durga Puja that frames the religiosity at its core. The pub­lic carnival that legitimises pri­vate hedonism. The erstwhile spectacle of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) set­ting up stalls selling Marxist literature outside pandals. (Most Puja committees once belonged to clubs/associations affiliated to CPM as well.)

Hindu identity and worship in Bengal was split between Vaishnavism, which later centred itself around Nabadwip after Chaitanya, and an older Shaivism which practically disappeared with the fall of the Senas, Bengal’s last independent Hindu rulers, some of whom were Shaivites although the dy­nasty was not known to have had any exclusive affection for Shaivism. The embers of Shaivism would be rekindled as Shaktism, the symbolic reassertion of Bengali Hindus under Islamic rule. Perhaps the mythology of Mahamaya, Durga as the warrior goddess, the slayer of evil, incorporat­ing every manifestation of hers as Mahashakti, was what a usually oppressed and mostly marginalised majority needed. The tenets of post-Chaitanya Vaishnavism, preaching universal love and harmony, were deemed unequal to the task, which was survival. Hindus would even­tually become the minority in undivided Bengal, albeit as re­cently as the late 19th century with its demographic flip. But Shaktism as the main school of Hindu worship would remain unchallenged.

The public puja, known earlier as barowari but since renamed sorbojanin, can be traced to the last decades of the 18th century when 12 individu­als organised a community puja because some or all of them were thrown out of a family/ household puja. Thus, what was primarily private worship, with restricted access but perhaps greater authenticity, became a shared experience of diluted re­ligiosity. Barowari, as a Sanskrit- Persian hybrid, literally means ‘for the public’; but colloquial parlance has it that the baro actually refers to 12, as in the 12 friends or acquaintances who started it all, by and for them­selves. Sorbojanin, implying “open to all”, has at least buried that etymological dispute.

Was Durga originally wor­shipped in spring or autumn? The Puranas are of course con­tradictory, but only if we read them so. There is an important Durga puja in the spring called Basanti Puja, celebrated in the month of Chaitra. Yet the pre-winter festival was the worship of Jagaddhatri, which happens about a month after Durga Puja. It’s said that the calendar was torn up by none other than Lord Rama when he invoked Durga before taking on Ravana. This early or untimely invocation of the goddess came to be known as Akal Bodhon after Rama. The irony, by this logic, is that the Sharadiya (autumnal) festivi­ties are mistimed. Yet, without that tweak of the calendar there would be no Durga Puja as we know it.

If it was Rama whose invo­cation of Durga at the wrong time of year legitimised the fes­tival calendar, one could argue that the political battle over Durga Puja and Ram Navami, in the context of Bengal, is a non-starter. But in Bengali per­ception, Rama has always been a divine king, a manifestation of Vishnu, not the godhead per se. There has never been a tradi­tion of observing Ram Navami among Bengalis although Ram Navami celebrations are ubiquitous among the migrant population, especially from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Still, it could have been light at the end of that tunnel.

Unfortunately, the main source of the claim that Rama invoked Durga at this time of year is the Bengali Krittivasi Ramayana, a major Ramayana but only one among many. Ra­mayanas from the south and the rest of northern India tend to say Rama invoked Surya. That sends the argument back to square one and Bengalis are left with their Durga Puja and a widening political fault line.

What this controversy masks is the conflict within the cultural contours of Durga Puja whereby the festival’s secularisation has rewritten its history and obscured its religious-spiritual significance. That again is less a question of personal faith than acknowl­edging and preserving original intent, despite the truism that everything changes. Would those medieval Hindu Ben­galis whose Shakti worship signified a desire to regain their freedom from fear—calling upon the goddess who slew Mahisashura—be aghast at witnessing a profane carni­val? What about those who brought the sacred home?

Distancing oneself from the religious core of Durga Puja was the post-religious Bengali’s self-identification as modern and secular, a notion of self and community tied up inextri­cably with socio-economic class and intellectual elitism. Over the years, as Durga Puja became more a testament to culinary excess and sartorial adventurism, the mandap at the far end of the pandal became an object one had to pay perfunctory obeisance to, which these days involves the use of a smartphone to shoot a video or two, especially if the dhakis or drummers are on a roll. The dhunuchi naach that usually accompanies the evening aarti is still other-worldly and legend has it that one cannot do it right without inspiration from above or possession from below. This living tradition is still the main attraction of the cordoned-off area in front of the mandap. But there is no room for quiet contemplation. Perhaps public worship is meant to preclude private reflection.

The aesthetics of Durga Puja turned the festival into a contest long ago—which com­mittee/neighbourhood wins the prize for the best-designed pandal that must be a work of art within and without, which artisan’s murtis or idols exhibit the best craftsman­ship. Thematic lighting along the approach to the pandal, sometimes taking over more than an entire street, is part of the deal even where space is premium. Some puja commit­tees, incidentally, had turned to eco-friendly materials and practices long before environ­mental consciousness dawned on the country.

Perhaps this obsession with form and the pursuit of pleasure keep Durga Puja alive. What’s forgotten is that Mahamaya Sanatani is ulti­mately formless. She is one but appears as many, assuming her forms only to help us imagine her. In a way, that is the story of Durga Puja’s triumph as a cul­tural event. We see the outside, and turn away from the inside. Which does not justify, let alone sanctify, the newfound practice in some quarters of depriving Durga of her weap­ons—that is not true to form either but a desecration. She is nothing if not a warrior.

When the writer Rogelio Sinán (Bernardo Domínguez Alba) arrived in Calcutta in the 1930s as the Panamanian consul, Durga Puja left a mark on his soul. He was pulled into a cultural fas­cination. That would become a pattern for foreigners. From an outsider’s perspective, the sacred and the profane keep each other in good company. After the recent deluge in and around Kolkata, here’s hoping the Puja is salvaged. For, there is no spectacle on Earth bigger or better.

Bibhutibhushan BandyopadhyaycultureDurga PujaGoddess DurgaPather PanchalireligionSatyajit RayWest Bengal