Durga Puja experiences last year: From Dhanmondi to Daspara

Last year Hindus observed Durga Puja with enthusiasm. It was possible due to the enabling presence of the present caretaker government, which went a long way in erasing the scars created after the 2001 October parliamentary election. Last year many people's prayer to God was if this could have been the permanent scenario of the different religious communities of the country!!
As a Dhanmondi resident I have to say that the absence of a Durga Puja pandal in the adjacent area was distressing to Hindus. The small arrangements in the Rayerbazar Puja Mondop and its inconvenient location could not attract people of nearby localities to attend there. Consequently they had no other alternatives but to go all the way to Ramkrishna Mission in Tikatuli, old Dhaka, or the Dhakeswary Temple at Bakshi Bazar. What Hindus of Dhanmondi and Kalabagan desired, as well as a number of its Muslim residents too, was to see a Puja here. The dream came true in 2007!
During the last weeks of September of last year our Khaleda Apa, Dr Khaleda Begum, made a phone call to me and told me in her affectionate voice: "Subrata, we are arranging a Durga Puja in Dhanmondi this year. This is the first time it is going to happen. You must keep in touch with us and…" so on and so forth. She explained that one day some religious Hindu ladies had expressed a desire at the gathering of the Surodhuni Chattar of the Dhanmondi lake to perform a Puja in the neighbourhood. The idea immediately resonated among many and people in the organisation got to work.
The phone call was encouraging, but doubts were there: Which place, could anybody give so much time, who would perform the Puja rituals, how to collect the needed money, where to look for the protima ( the idol). Professor Mozaffar Hossain and I began to attend meetings though Puja has never created that much religious fervour in me. But I have never been able to deny the importance of it as a social event and in developing stronger bonds between the people of a neighbourhood. My problem was I had committed to pass my Puja days with members of my village family since I had not been able to do so the last two years. I however pitched in, and did what I could arranging the materials for a brochure, contacting the right people to deliver talks on the historic, philosophic and religious aspects of Hinduism, Durga Puja, et cetera. Then, before the Puja started I had to leave for Kamarkhali, my village home in Faridpur with my family.
Kamarkhali, though a small business centre now, has a long heritage of arranging colourful Durga Pujas. I can still recall pre-independence Puja festivities when huge numbers of people, even from the nearby district towns of Faridpur, Magura, Jhenidah, would visit the Kamarkhali Puja Mondop. But what really made me happy was when I found that arrangements had been made for holding of Puja in Daspara itself. Daspara is a small area of Mochhlandopur, an adjacent village of Kamarkhali. The people of the Das families, some of whom were wealthy during Pakistan days, reside there. The Durga Puja of the para used to be a thrilling event for the locals since it had a history of more than three hundred years. The above fact was related by Provaboty Datta, an 89-year-old didima (grandmother) of the village. During the 1971 liberation year the Daspara community lost its homes, assets and hopes. Moreover, the mandir (temple) was totally destroyed. And during the thirty-six years after the liberation war the Das people could not muster the necessary courage and spirit to resume their traditional Puja. It was only last year that some local youths dared to take the initiative to perform the rituals of the largest religious, social and cultural festival that their forefathers had performed for so long. I asked them, mere boys (Bishu, Suju, Achinto, Sazal, and others), how they had dared to do so. Their answers centered on the peaceful law-and-order situation in the country. No gangs, or mastans, from the surrounding areas dared harass Puja devotees or tease Hindu girls visiting the mondops or start unpleasant scenes that, in bygone days, were common in village areas during Puja days.
During my Kamarkhali days I got regular updates over my cell phone from Khaleda Apa about the Puja function, cultural performances, large crowds, media coverage on the Dhanmondi Sarbojonin Durga Puja -- her sincerity made her give detailed reports about the festivities to me. She understood how happy I would have been if I could have been there with them, so she shared everything about the Puja with me. Her phone calls filled my Puja days with real satisfaction and happiness, thinking how the Hindu community was enjoying its Puja days in its own waywithout the rowdiness from local mastans, without the anxiety generated by communal disharmony--unburdened and free.
The Durga Pujas of both Dhanmondi and Daspara makes plain the deep desire of a minority community across the whole country to be able to perform their Puja rituals within the context of a peaceful and harmonious situation. This year too it was expected to be the same and I pray and hope it will remain so for the coming years as well.

Subrata Kumar Das has set up a web site www.bangladeshinovel.com