THE SMELL OF PUJO

When is a good time to flag the Durga Puja , or simply the Pujo, in Kolkata? Since  I don't leave Kolkata during this period, I am not off to a quick  July-August start , firming up the travel arrangements,  like so many others. Unlike many,  I don't quite  consider the Vishwa Karma puja as the trigger- even though it has the elements of chanda, pandal( to rhyme with candle) , thakursthapana  and visrajan.  Earlier, when I used to stay in a government housing estate in Ballygunge Circular Road, the residents' committee whose secretary was my wife would start early to organise and I would be sucked in, but now I don't stay there any more. For the last few years, the on-your-mark-get-set-go gunshot has been either  the publication of Pujo articles in newspapers or Sharadiya Sale graffiti on shops or sometimes even a  bad traffic jam on account of roadside pandal construction. 

This year , it has been a Whatsapp forward a couple of days ago in the form of a delightful ditty  that has  brought in the heady scent, sights and sound of the Pujo. Somehow I had never heard it before. It is a song composed by the late maestro Salil Choudhary O Aaye  re chhute aaye, pujor gondho esechhe ( Hark , the smell of pujo is here) which was sung by his daughter Antara way back in 1977 but has recently been remixed . The remix is an animation video , and I sometimes wonder whether the frames were inspired by sketches which the incomparable composer  would draw  in his spare time.

The animation is wonderfully evocative -  blue skies with the odd race of clouds, green paddy fields dotted with the white kaash phool at the edges,  cascades of shiuli blossoms , dance of the bees, excitement of children as they watch the short train of the flutist, the cymbal boy and the dhaki go past. A line in the  first stanza is lyrically onomatopoeic- dhang kur kur dhang karakur, batti bejechhe. Yes, despite the united colours of pandals and pratimas, Lal paar sarees and panjabis, the tarpan and the mesmeric rendition of mahishasur mardani , the triumph -of -truth- over- evil didactic , the smell and sight of shiuli and the dhunucchi, sindoor khela and visarjan and the gastronomic excesses,  Durga Puja for me is also a Festival of the Sound of the Dhhak. It announces, attracts, engages, energises  and strings the Pujo proceedings.

My fascination for the dhaak goes back to October, 1989 when as a young trainee, bunking training at Barrackpore, I had reached Sealdah Station along with my batch mate, the irrepressible Herman Prit Singh.As the two of us emerged out of this mad mad  Sealdah station building , we were struck, almost like a bolt of lightning, by a terrific crescendo as hundreds of  drummers went about their business. It appeared as if the whole was gripped with a singular activity and purpose - of every drummer or dhakia announcing himself loudly in unison. The dhak is the large drum that men hang around their necks and play with two thin sticks to infuse the frenzied rhythm into listeners.

So captivated were we that we postponed our purpose of bunking- I to meet my young wife tucked away in Ballygunje Circular and he to visit his Mamaji in Elgin Road.  Instead, we  bought two bhaands or earthen cups of chai and sipped slowly to let ourselves soak in the atmosphere. There was no urgency to get away. Besides the fury of sound was the riot of colours of bird feathers that were attached to these huge drums and the plumes on the dhakis' headresses - animal rights  activists had not made their presence felt fully by then. We found out that these dhakis had come from different villages and hamlets from Midnapur, Birbhum, Bankura, North 24 Parganas and even Murshidabad. - and were just displaying their wares to be picked up by the many Pujo organisers. Enquiries made, music and madness enjoyed, tea finished, the trance broken, we went away.

But the dhakis never left us. Wherever we stayed, Burdwan, Barasat, Durgapur, Siliguri, Krishnanagar, and finally at Ballygunje Circular , the dhaki and his assistant, a 'bell boy' ( playing the bell metal or cymbal) would wake us up to the smell of shiuli or harsingar flowers that wafted intoxicatingly during those early , and moderately nippy , hours - a bit like the azaan .

And while the morning perambulation of the duo was accompanied by slow rhythmic sounds, the tunes would become faster as the days proceeded - to ramp up the more energetic ceremonies of Durga Puja like chokkhu daan (eye presentation), patha boli (goat sacrifice), bisarjan (immersion ceremony), sandhya arati (evening offerings), sandhipuja (worshiping at the conjunction of two phases) and the dhunuchi dance.The annual farewell to the dhaki was always after the Bhasan or Visarjan to which the duo accompanied me each of the eight years I personally went to Babu Ghat. From Shashthhee to Dashami, the two were part of the para - just like the pandit and his assistant. 

I would chat with the dhaki. He was from Birbhum, a short, thin, wiry, dark and surprisingly quiet for a man who could bring his dhak to a frenzied pitch. His ancestors were dhakis on the rolls of Malla kings of Bishnupur. Daily pujas were organised for the deities in the palace and the dhakis played a significant role and besides, there was a custom of making announcements of various government programmes through beating of drums - dhol shaharat. But now, the practitioners of this hereditary profession were leaving due to the small performing season and competition from electronic music and bands. And a day would come, he prophesized, when the rising cost of mango wood would push the dhaak makers to use aluminium instead. It will no longer sound the same. This is one doomsday prophecy I would never wish comes true.