Durga Puja : 2009

This year ,puja was completely different from other years. This year I meet
my four college friends who were here with me for complete two days. We
meet after 23 years of college life. All are well settled . Debu , Dr Debashis
Roy is professor of Jadhabpur University Mechanical Engineering. Bhaitu ,
Anshuman Sensharma is in training business. Vaidya Nath Saha is in Tata
Power , setteled in Mumbai. Sidhu , Siddharta Shankar Sarkar is in ONGC
Mumbai.

Bhaitu came from Ahmedabad to spend three days with us. On the 1st day of
Durga Puja , the Saptami we all meet at the house of Sh Vaidya.

That day Debu was in Mumbai on stop over from Kolkata to Goa. I hired two
big cars to take us to the major pujas of Mumbai. Our five families could
hardly fit inside those two Qualis cars.

From Vaidya's house we started at 8 PM . Despite all my efforts, We could

visit only three major pujas of Mumbai – Vashi , Dadar and Lokhandewala.
In fact managing five house wives with kids of all sizes was really a
challenge. We had all sorts of problems on the road. The car was delayed ,
heavy rain on the road , Bhaitu's daughter fell sick, Kids and even the wives
felt hungry quite frequently.

When we reached Vashi at 9:30 PM everybody ran towards the food stalls.
No one bothered to visit the Goddess Durga until their stomach gets
quenched sufficiently by foods.

The quality of the foods in those stalls were certainly not good but everybody
was terribly hungry so....

At 10:15 PM after munching so many foods, kids reminded us to enter into

the pandel to visit the Goddes Durga ,after all that's why we came to Vashi.

The pandal of Vashi was quite big. It is the richest Bengali club of Mumbai.
But due to construction works they had to shift their venue to this ground
which was quite small and congested.

Pic: Vashi Puja

Chembure puja was our next destination.

After taking enough food kids and wives started feeling drowsy in the cool
inside of the AC car. Wives started asking for cold drinks so we had to stop
on the way for water.

When we reached Chmbure we all were feeling drowsy and naturally failed
to locate the Puja Pandal of Chembure. The driver boy was not very familiar
with Chembure so he too could not locate the Durga Puja pandal eiher.

The wives who were all half-asleep now wanted to avoid all disturbances and
ordered to move ahead for Dadar.

The kids who were feeling little congested inside the cars , and wanted to
revolt to go out under the sky ,was promptly shut off by their mothers.
So we head for Shivaji park , Dadar.

At Shivaji park heavy rain started like a roaring monster. We all got wet with
rain. Kids were enjoying but their mothers were not happy at all with rains.
But Mumbai rain is different. It comes suddenly and goes suddenly. You can't
remain angry with it.

The theme of Dadar's puja was 'palace of Zaminder' .

Pic: Dadar Shibaji Park Puja

Our next destination was Lokhandewala.

Pic: Lokhandawala Puja

At 1:30 AM in the morning when we reached Lokhandewala . The wives and

kids were to be wake up for 'darshan'.

That was Avijit's puja...

The Bollywood mega star Shri Avijeet was sitting inside a chamber beside
the pandal. The moment a new group arrives he comes out and gives darshan
to fans or would-be-fans and then returns to the cabin.

The wives became exuberant when they saw Shri Avijit so closely. They liked
the ambiance of the whole place along with Avijit. There were quite a few
food stalls beside the pandal. In that wee hours the vendors were still selling
their goodies.

The kids and the wives suddenly discovered that they were hungry and they
have not eaten anything for a long time since Dadar.
Vaidya purchased variety of foods for everybody.

After half an hour we set out from Lokhandewala. At 2:40 AM we reached

Vaidya's house at Santacruz.

Next day the 26th Sept'09 we scheduled to be at Powai puja.

The team arrived Powai at 8 PM, just 3 hours late from the scheduled time.

After eating small snacks at my flat the team rushed to the pandal.

Pic : Powai Puja

Powai puja enthralled every body. The foods stalls were good and hygienic.
Nobody wasted time in discussion. 'Muglai Parantha', 'fish-fry' , 'cutlet'
started disappearing into the mouths of everybody. After eating a good
amount of foods we all started taking photographs of the Goddess , pandal ,
functions etc.

We stayed here till midnight. Next day some of my friends and their wives
came for flower offerings to the Goddess Durga.
In the noon we eat 'khidi bhog' at the pandal. The evening was scheduled to
be at Kharghar, the residence of Sidhu.

We could not go as our daughter have tuition next day morning. The team set
off at 6 PM. Everybody felt bad while departing us.

We wished to meet again next year.

Pic : Immersion of Powai Puja

S. Bera
Powai