Call it extreme excitement or call it euphoriaor call it exhilaration , exultation , ecstasy , any noun , adjective or adverb will simply feel inferior to capture the extravaganza called Durgapuja in Kolkata. Its huge , humungous and simply maddening . In fact Bengali annual calendar although starts with summer ie Baisakh , virtually get divided with the time line pre Puja and post puja .Sometimes I am at my wits end to understand where in the Bengali Durgapuja dwells in , in heart or head ? or in both ? While risking the pandal hopping for consecutive two days , this question now repeatedly arises in me how Bengali specially the Kolkatan clan should be described as . Every pandal we moved appeared to outsmart the other with everything a decoration or lighting stands for , the skill , the details, the creativity , the pomp , the grandeur , the resplendence everything . If some pandal tried to go to the extreme of abstracts like capturing the time or retrieving the history , some simply worked some wonders , unimaginable artifacts of dokra, sola or cane . The concept , the planning and the execution have appeared to cross all bars of excellence. While in Naktala it was all about some ultra modern experiment with theme to recreate the time dimension in space which just got enough to confuse rather than to conform to any brief history of time , the narrative in Bengali voice being recited in the pandal was quite captivating .And yes when the theme is ultramodern and tries move beyond the time it will certainly attract one kind of viewers or reviewers(you may call them journo) who loves to think themselves very global who appear to be obsessed more with science rather than art. Unfortunately the whole theme-puja concept is of more about arts and art where the recent revival of dokra or lost art of potchitra are being articulated with the precision which is unthinkable sometimes beyond the human imagination. So while we started with confusion at Naktala Udayan ‘s theme of capturing the time we ended huge contentment with Mudiyali showcasing the magnificent skill of dokra outside pandal inside pandal and all over the decoration .In fact the elaboration and exhibition of different motif and mural were enough to mesmerize , captivate and enthrall anybody and everybody. In the mean time we saw some of the other themes also specially reflecting the present where human being just put inside the reverse evolution and getting back to their sapiens stage , thanks the intolerance , violence , wilderness , ruthlessness and a complete phase of inconsistency , incongruence and incoherence . Whether the inflection point is the extreme atrocity on woman , exploitation of weak and underprivileged , trampling over the basic sense of living being where being human is an extinct feature we are surely in reverse track to get back where we started and yes Badamtala captured the theme so ruthlessly , it will strike on the sense of viewers instantly . It was so raw yet so real. A cage , , a roaring lion with its all jingoism and wilderness and not inside but outside the cage , an woman at her most extreme assault and the clock has been reversed we are simply scaling back to cross back all those eras of caveman ,apes, superapes. Suruchi Sangha always tries to give the earthy touch , the rural fervor on what it does . In fact the village , its art of living and it’s a cohabitation with everything natural and from the nature is not only so soothing to the urban anxious and agonized eyes but also showing the exit route of so much self destructive , self engulfing hype and halla development. This year this club showcased the magnum opus of terracotta art. The excitement was genuine as the structure was huge elaborating terracotta art of elephant and horse and so others in its unique way as the century old legacy -art is being nurtured in some hinterlands in Bankura. It is simply enthralling to imagine how any artist could have imagined the whole creation in such a large level . But more than that the better question which always knocks me is that where does these all wonders go after the puja is over ?
Jodhpur Park has always been the arch rival Suruchi. And to see the skill and creativity of both somehow gives you the taste of Derby in your town. Unfortunately , we missed the Puja Pandal Derby of South Kolkata this time as my platoon already got tired of so many grandeurs in such a little time , may be a couple of hours. While everybody of us admitted this show off of the extreme of skill which certainly took more than half dozen months to get it in shape and size of this level deserves at least a few hours of composure and keenness of observation to enjoy and explore. Hopping and huffing with counts (how many pandal we finished) has never been a right way for coming close to feel the flavor of them. Anyway we needed some break of such grand exhibition certainly stimulating our grey cells and provoking so many thoughts at a time with such rapid rounds , which needed to be contemplated and we entered a sun shine lit morning pond side garden called Rabindra Sarobar. The time was never so apt to take an immediate plunge inside the greenery soaked in morning mist as well as experience still fresh with unbelievable human art. While the morning mist which still veiled the whole park with its gradual allowance of golden rays to shower its different moist corners making itself a top mystery to wonder how it can do this inside the heart of a city much infamous for its level of pollution , equal mysterious was the human capability to think how anybody individually of collectively could work to such a precision and profusion. In any benchmark both goes beyond six sigma level , to its highest of its excellence and to the lowest(tends to nil) of its error factor.