Kali Puja,
Udang. West Bengal
October 2009

Post a lot of passionate convincing by my parents, I reluctantly agreed to spend my diwali away from the comfort-zone of my home in Mumbai. Diwali would be celebrated the traditional Bangali joint-family way - Kali Puja at our ancestral village Udang, a few hours from Kolkata.

It was to be a family reunion of sorts. Everyone would fly-in from their various perches and camp at Udang for 3-4 days. There would be the usual blur of activities - idol to be brought home, painted, dressed, decorated, the all night long puja with my favorite ceremony of lighting 100 diyas simultaneously at mid-night with conch shell telling off the bad spirits while married women form an O-mouth, barely sticking out their tongues and yell oolllooollloouuuu. And some happy kid gets to have the honor of banging the thick brass metallic disc with a wooden baton.... I had been a part of all this exciting pandemonium for years – until about 8 years ago when I was no longer the lucky kid banging the brass plate with a wooden baton...

The puja was just one part of the tradition. The rest included rituals like the incessant flow of hot cups of sweet tea from dawn to dusk, otherwise responsible adults sneaking off during the afternoon siesta time to steal coconuts, tamarind and other fruits from the neighbor's garden. In the evening, as the sun sets, we would all come together in the central courtyard armed with tabla, harmonium, sitar and tons of jhal muri. The music session would stretch late into the night. The moms would stir up a hot meal and feed everyone in lots of 10-12 while the men would sit around talking politics and discussing rising prices. Some old dadu with a flair for story telling would round up all the little ones and give them goosebumps with freaky village style ghost stories. Anyone who has watched bancharamer bagaan as a kid would know how spooky things can get in a such a setting.

The night sky studded with a million stars, the moon shimmering in it’s nest of clouds, the black palms swishing and swinging against the deep blue backdrop, ominous croaking toads and the sound of snakes slithering in to the darkness, the sudden flap of a bat wing... Imaginative, scary, unnerving and immensely exciting....

But lots has changed from those days - some of my favorite people are long dead and gone, landmarks from my childhood have vanished, replaced by houses or trees or structures. Plastic has unfortunately invaded the landscape, bright synthetic colors have replaced the earthy tones of mud houses and bulbs; naked, bright bulbs with red and yellow wires trailing all over the place have killed the sweet enigma of the sounds and smells of the village night.

Everything changes with time and I can only be grateful for having had the opportunity to enjoy Kali Puja in Udang when it was at it’s best. Here are some photographs from this year’s puja.