Shubho Bijoya Greetings to all my friends here and to everyone that visits - wishing health, wealth and happiness to you all

Durga Pujo is the Christmas of the east cosatal state of Bengal in India. People build huge pandals worth hundreds of thousands of rupees that houses the idols of goddess Durga.

Here I have shown some of the exterior and the idols inside three of the most famous pujos of Kolkata city. These are also few of the oldest survising pujos in Kolkata dating back over fifty five years now.

 These two are pictures of the pandal at Bagbazar Sarbojonin - near Kumortuli, innorth Kolkata city. It looks like a palace, doesn't it? The material used is fabric over bamboo frame.

 This is the idol inside the Bagbazar pandal, it wsa crowded with thousands of media people nd worshippers the day we visited.

 This below is the pandal at Ahritola - a very old pujo, they used a whole boat for the decor!

Created the water effect with cellophane and inside was underwater theme. The birds are not real !

Inside the Ahritola pandal shown above was this idol below:

This one was near Bagbazar wedged inside a very narrow lane- it is only the gateway leading in to the pandal from the main street.

 The pandal proper is this one: look

 And my favourite panel on the flanks of this relatively unknown pandal

 The ekchala* idol inside this pandal, the first protima I set my eyes on  this puja (*when the idol is al in one piece, it is called that)

 This is the idol inside the Kumortuli Pujo - kumortuli is the oldest and the iconic artist's villge where these idols get made. If you want to say that a woman is very beautiful, here you say "this face looks like it has been made to order at Kumortuli" :)  You can see the depiction of how good triumphs over dark forces of evil -

notice the masks on the wallpanels surrounding this idol below

Inside Kumortuli were several individual panels lining the way to the main garbagriho where Durga was, this Krishna idol below was one of those

This one is from inside the ahritola pandal, the one with the underwater theme - shells of fruit and nuts become underwater flora and funa in the hands of poor ingenious artists! Isn't it absolutely gorgeous? With the lighting inside it did feel like we were under water.

The  pandals are works of art and so are the idols inside. It is sad to see them immersed in the waters of the Ganges when the five days of puja are over. Though the artwork (made of terracotta and clay and lots of other material the artists work with) provide livelihood to thousands of artisans and decorators, lightsmen, it is still such waste of resources - but then preserving so many ratwork would take miles of space. I think if we had the American spirit, we would had a whole stadium dedicated to preserving this art form.  

Am not a good photographer and the Nikon I used had a lot of issues too, it is old, but I do hope you like them and I wanted to bring home an element of our Durga Pujo.

Do let me know if I could make this post better.