Durga Puja in Kolkata is the city’s beating heart that pumps festive colours and joy into every soul. From the first sight of shoroter aakash to kashphool swaying on the EM Bypass, every scene in the city becomes a living, breathing work of art during Puja days.
But for many Kolkatans, 2025 marks their first Durga Puja away from the city — be it in classrooms of a university located at the other end of the country, workplaces filled with drama instead of the soulful dhaak beats, or simply in places where the festival takes a quieter turn.
When Puja is reduced to ordinary days
The absence of Kolkata’s festive vibe during Pujo is what hits the hardest. For Debarati Pal, who moved to Haryana this year to pursue the Young India Fellowship at Ashoka University, her first Durga Puja away from home feels strangely silent.
“My first year away from home during Puja makes me realise how much of the ‘October excitement’ is collective — it is in the conversations, noticing the daily progression of the pandals and, the lights and ads making roads look different,” she said. “Here when I see my routine, those special days are only dates like any other.”
Despite the muted environment, she and her fellow Bengalis are determined to make the festive week count by dressing up, visiting pandals in Delhi and connecting with people from Kolkata.
“I was never big on pandal-hopping, but Puja for me is about the carnivalesque feeling of four days, when you can do anything,” she said, adding that she will miss the coming together of friends and family, and witnessing the artistic transformation of Kolkata’s streets with them.
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The ache that grows every year
For others, the longing only worsens with time. Having spent three years away from Kolkata during Puja, Rajni Singh, who grew up in Belur, feels the emptiness never really goes away.
“As Pujo nears, I feel a deep ache. It’s been three years since I’ve been home, and while the world celebrates, a part of me feels incomplete without Kolkata’s heartbeat around me,” she said.
Even though she tunes into livestreams of Kolkata’s Puja and celebrates from afar with friends and family through video calls back home, she misses the feeling of being part of something larger when the entire city comes alive together.
“I’ll miss the adda — the laughter, the midnight conversations, and the warmth of familiar faces. And of course, the dhaak, the shiuli, and the glow of a city that feels like one big family,” she said.
For Rajni, Kolkata during Puja is an emotion, a reminder of belonging and of home.
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Finding fragments of Kolkata elsewhere
When you leave your city behind, you often try to find pieces of your childhood in a place you struggle to call your new home. In Bangalore, Sweta Saha is navigating her first Puja away from home by actively trying to stay connected to her roots.
“In Kolkata, the city transforms, streets shimmer with lights, pandals rise like works of art, and the air carries the scent of kashphool and anticipation. Here in Bangalore, life feels quieter, more routine. The festive energy that once pulsed through every corner of my world now feels distant,” she said.
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Instead of giving in to the melancholy, Sweta is mapping out the city’s pandals to recreate the thrill of pandal hopping.
“It’s my way of holding on to the culture that shaped me. I’ll be dodging the flood of group messages and photo updates from my friends back home—not because I don’t care, but because I know they’ll tug too hard at my heartstrings,” Sweta signed off.
When puja feels like ‘just another festival’
Before their career or academics took them to other cities, Kolkatans never felt that Durga Puja might one day feel just like any other festival. Some, like Joyeeta Majumdar, a former Baguiati resident currently living in Gurgaon, feel the cultural disconnect more than ever as Puja arrives.
“Yes, there are pandals here, but what there isn’t is Pujo… pronounced the way it is spelt — P-oo-joh, instead of the widely-accepted spelling ‘puja’,” the 29-year-old said. “No one around me has mentioned pandal hopping, there’s no countdown, no shopping… I feel no excitement, just a pull back home.”
As the city gets bedecked and pandal art floods through social media, Joyeeta’s algorithm has picked up on her resentments for missing the time Kolkata is her best self.
Scrolling through images of Kolkata on social media only makes the nostalgia more painful. “I suppose another year away from home, and I won’t be as resentful. Hopefully I will get used to ‘puja’, and pujo will find itself lost in some nook of my mind.”
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Remembering the sounds and smells of home
The pain of living away from home, especially during the festive season, finds a momentary cure in memories layered with sounds, smells and faces.
For 52-year-old Sibaram Das, who lived in Kharagpur before moving to Chennai earlier this month, Puja memories are filled with nostalgia.
He remembers the dhaak, the mantras on the loudspeaker, and the sheer joy on people’s faces as they walked from pandal to pandal all night.
“After Ganesh Chaturthi, the pandal work would start, and you could feel the joy coming soon. The posters of beauty parlours would go up, women would book their appointments in advance, and the whole town was buzzing with excitement,” Das reminisced.
Despite the heartache, Das plans to narrate his memories of Durga Puja to his new colleagues in Chennai this year with an undying love for his hometown, where all cultures come together during the festive days.
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A ‘mature’ way of dealing with homesickness
Embracing the homesickness and the ache that comes with distance, Somudro Nandy, a first-year law student who recently moved to Mumbai, is excited to see what Puja is like in his new city.
“Every once in a while, I do find myself missing Kolkata,” he said. “But I am excited to see what Puja is like in Mumbai. My friends and I are planning to visit popular pandals like the North Bombay Durga Puja in Juhu.”
Still, Somudro says he will miss walking the streets of Kolkata with his family, talking about life, and even complaining about the crowded pandals together.
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For Anirban Saha, who recently moved to Bhubaneswar for his first job, the excitement is on the lower side this year.
“Earlier, Puja meant planning every day out with friends. Now, it’s about planning when I can go home and spend quality time with them,” he shared.
While he hopes to surprise his family with gifts and more time together, he admits he misses the build-up to the special moments the most.
“The planning, the shopping, the whole month-long excitement — that is what I miss. The four days fly by, but it’s the anticipation that makes Puja magical,” he remarked.