Pujo Blog (2025)

Every year, a particular puja pandal in Chinsurah draws huge crowds on account of its brilliant themes. This year, they built a replica of an old villa that struck crowds dumb, blending seamlessly into the locality of old houses and thakurbaris. However, ironies don't lie far away from this world of festivities. Unbeknownst to many in the crowds, immediately opposite to the pandal stood once a beautiful villa, an apartment now standing in its place.

Panchanantala Durga Puja Pandal

'Punascha'- the house opposite to the Puja, being demolished, 2019.

The apartment building that replaced 'Punascha'

This always pisses me off a bit, and many others too I'm sure. While more and more old mansions fall prey to demolition and boxy apartments, there seems to be a proportional increase in themes of old houses in Durga puja pandals. Houses keep falling apart, thakurbaris remain like standalone decontextualized monuments, meaningless year round except for pujo, some of them even shadowed by apartment buildings casting an ominous shadow on them.

The irony of desecration and simultaneous fetishized curation of "purono bari aesthetics" is one of the ugly ironies we see in Bengal today. More 3bhks, more pre-wedding photoshoots in rajbaris. And Chinsurah is no exception. This year alone I saw 3 pandals trying out such themes, last year I'm sure there were 2. This particular pandal in fact had hoardings covering up the genuine old houses in the vicinity. While crowds gathered here, a few hundred metres down the road stood the old Mondol bari, which had last hosted a pujo nearly 50 years ago.

Mondol Bari, Kamarpara, Chinsurah

The thakurdalan of Bose Bari, hiding behind an apartment
building, Khalisani, Chandannagar

Rathtala Sarbojanin, Chinsurah

 
A pandal in Tolafatok, Chinsurah, celebrating their Jubilee with a
pandal resembling a palladial mansion

Don't get me wrong, I dont blame the participants necessarily. Not the puja organizers, not the poor residents of old houses who cant afford the upkeep of their "saada hati," not the people who want a little "bonediana" and glamour sometimes. I really don't know whom to blame. Neither do I know if this rant is a genuine one, or a part of post-pujo blues I'm trying to channelise somewhere.

What I do know is I see ironies all around me, that become even more stark during pujo.

I see old household pujos, once a symbol of elite exuberance and exclusivity, now spaces which feel familial and welcoming, while barowari pandals, that began as a groundbreaking innovations that opened up celebrations to everyone, now exhibiting commodified exclusivity on a scale never seen before. I see pandals depicting tough haunting realities of the present through art, I see people clicking selfies infront of a "Free Palestine" and "genocide" mural, and I see Israel intercepting flotillas aiming to deliver humanitarian aid on my mobile screen.

I see ironies everywhere. Ugly ironies, floating around, like currencies of the modern age.