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| Friday, October 03, 2003 |

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Sing a popular paean to peace

If the world was a pandal, it would have been a happier place to live in. Metro picks the principal theme of the Pujas and catches a glimpse of other focal points, from movies to mining, feminism to the futuristic


Peace reigns this Puja, at least in the pandals. Mohammad Ali Park leads the peace pack, with gun-toting asuras — mingling with contemporary faces of evil (Osama bin Laden and all that) — surrounding the goddess. But what shines through are the messengers of peace in pristine white. The theme is reinforced with the pandal resembling a Kampuchean Buddha temple. Peace is the paean at several other puja destinations — Barisha Sarbojanin in Sabornopara, where a 24-ft-high Buddha towers over the pandal, Mahisasura begs for forgiveness and a benign Durga stands with folded hands; FE Block Sarbojanin Durgotsav, Salt Lake, where Goopy Gyne and Bagha Byne ask ‘Juddha kore korbi ki ta bol’; Ekdalia Evergreen Club, Babubagan Sarbojanin… the list of peacemakers goes on. Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti…

Sheldon Colliery, pit no. 9; Shaft D.C; Avg production: 180 tonnes a day. At Aaikatan, Selimpur, the lift screeches up with another load of coal and the ropeway carries it off to the storehouse. Around 10 tonnes of coal is dumped in the field, now a typical Asansol colliery. In one corner, the Devi brightens up a miner’s dark, dreary life	A trip down celluloid lane with Durga for company. Barisha Sahajatri picks 13 films with a puja connection — from Pather Panchali to Anushandhan, Paroma to Devdas. The puja site is a studio floor, complete with reflectors, camera and trolley. The puja is being shot and screened live, along with a 90-second film created using clips from the chosen films

It’s yesterday, today, tomorrow, at Palli Asar, New Alipore. Three Durgas, placed side by side, from three time zones. Durga 1953 is a diminutive ekchala model, the traditional mother figure, complete with a haarikath for sacrifice and a live goat tied to it. Durga 2003 strikes a pose, with intricate designs in clay making up the sari and the ornaments. Durga 2053, on the October page of a calendar 50 years later, is confined to a place on a garage wall. There’s no other space for the goddess left in tomorrow’s world	Woman’s emancipation is the theme at Tarun Sangha, Dum Dum Park, where a sylph emerges from a large luminous globe surrounded by demons. On the walls, Durga — in true Maqbool Fida Husain style — is depicted as ordinary women, but all with the third eye. The curvaceous pandal, vaguely resembling a woman’s body, is supported by 51 pillars, symbolising the pithasthans