Author: TNN
Publication: The Times of India
Date: September 29, 2008
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/A_barir_pujo_that_takes_you_back_to_the_Puranas/articleshow/3538122.cms
If you are tired of the clamour and the extravagance
of today's Puja, you can take a break and visit the Das family on Seal Lane,
off CIT Road.
This is the first time Durga Puja is being
organized at the family's Mohan Vrindavan temple. Once there, you will be
transported to the days when the Puja meant a strict adherence to the shastras
with a zealous effort to invoke the Goddess.
It took years for this family to prepare itself
to organize this puja because the idea was not to get a purohit from outside
but to perform the puja themselves. Prasenjit Das, the son of the family,
who will perform the puja and is an engineer by profession, spent the whole
of last year mastering the stotras at an ashram in Benaras. The family also
took lessons in conducting the puja from Jayanta Kushari, who is the 'court'
priest of the Sovabazar Rajbari. At least 10 priests from Vrindavan and Mathura
will assist him.
The uniqueness of the puja is that instead
of being a five-day affair, it lasts for a fortnight. In fact, it has already
started on September 23 (Krishna Navami) and will end on Shukla Navami on
October 9. "Of the four Puranas that mention the ways in which Durga
Puja has to be organized, we are following the Vrihatnandikeshar Purana, that
makes it mandatory for the puja to be conducted over 15 days," says Prasenjit.
Raghunandan, a Bengali pandit during the time
of emperor Akbar, had translated the puja rites of all the four Puranas and
it is his version that the family is following in toto.
The family went to 40 different locations
of the country to collect water and soil for the puja. For the soil to be
dug up by the tusk of an elephant, Prasenjit's sister Moumita went all the
way to Pune to a family that owns an elephant. The soil that has to be collected
from the entrance to a sex worker's house was collected from Sonagachhi.
Again, for water from the Saraswati, which
is believed to be a dead river now, the family went to Allahabad because tradition
has it that the Saraswati still flows into the sea at Prayag. But the most
difficult was to collect dew. The family would lay out banana leaves on the
roof throughout last winter and finally, a bottleful was collected.
Stotra paath by 10 pandits under the watchful
eyes of Kushari is an integral part of this puja. Arrangements have also been
made for clearing Puja-related misconceptions. An example is 'kalabou', who
is thought of as Ganesh's wife. "She is another form of Durga, where
she is worshipped as a plant. There are nine plants encapsulated within one
plantain, denoting eight forms of the Devi," Prasenjit explained.
