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The glittering heart of Manhattan transformed into a celebration of Bengal on October 1 and 2 as Times Square, known as the ‘Crossroads of the World’, hosted its first-ever real-time Durga Puja, organised by the Times Square Durga Utsav Association. More than 50,000 visitors came together to witness the beloved Bengali festival take over the billboard-laden core of New York City.
The Association’s sister organisation, Times Square Bengali Nababarsho Celebration, helped get April 14 recognised as ‘Bengali New Year’ throughout the state of New York. Incidentally, the plans to celebrate a real-time Durga Puja in the United States first germinated during Poila Boisakh.
Times Square was the obvious choice of venues as it would offer a truly global stage to the festival, making it organically accessible to both non-Bengali-speaking and international visitors. The vision drew inspiration from Kolkata's iconic Maddox Square Durga Puja. New York, home to perhaps the largest Bengali population in any single city outside West Bengal and Bangladesh, provided the demographic base for such an endeavour. The organising team wanted to recreate the ambience many had cherished in their childhood, complete with the authenticity of real-time celebrations rather than weekend accommodations.
The celebrations at Times Square were spread out over Ashtami, Navami and Dashami’s scriptural timings, just how it is back home.
The New York and New Jersey area already hosts over 60 Durga Pujas, but the celebrations are conventionally compressed into a weekend.
This year though, the largest street art festival in the world went global in real time. The mayor's office played a pivotal role, recognising New York as a cultural melting pot and coming through with all the necessary permissions. This kickstarted a six-month journey of brainstorming and execution, which would bring Kolkata closer to New York.
The committee appointed Mridul Pathak, a pioneer of theme pujas in Kolkata and now based in New York, as the chief adviser of the festival. Since this was the inaugural edition, the organisers deliberately avoided experimenting with elaborate themes, instead opting for a traditional Maddox Square-style setup, complete with an adda zone and cultural performances. The idol itself came directly from Kumartuli, sculpted by Pradip Rudrapal, lending Kolkata’s authentic artistic tradition to the Manhattan celebration.
What stood out was how the festival maintained its Bengali identity, while embracing cultural inclusivity. Alongside traditional rituals like sindoor khela and sandhi pujo, the event featured dandiya celebrations for Navratri. Rimli Roy and her Surati group presented an English musical adaptation of the Ramayana titled Ramaavan, which made the Indian epic more accessible to foreign audiences. Lopamudra Mitra and Joy Sarkar touched the Bengali chord with their music.
Beyond community celebration, the event carried a strategic objective — positioning Bengal as a global tourism destination for Durga Puja. The organisers aimed to build international awareness for the largest street art festival in the world, inviting foreign tourists to visit the thousands of exquisite installations that line Kolkata’s streets every Durga Puja.
Being recognised by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage has provided the festival with a lot of credibility, but the celebration at Times Square aimed to transcend it into a celebration of universal values. Be it the triumph of good over evil, women’s empowerment, or the profound concept of homecoming; the greater philosophies of Durga Puja resonate across communities, religions and countries. With a successful debut under his belt, Pathak hopes to incorporate themes into the celebrations with artistic pandals from next year.
Vice president of Times Square Durga Utsav Association, Kallol Basu, underlines the symbolic weight of the celebrations, “It is quite emotional, because we all want Durga Puja to be valued the same way as the Rio Carnival or the Biennale. If we can brighten Times Square with the energy, enthusiasm and colors of Kolkata, we believe that the Durga Puja has a very strong potential to become a truly international festival in the coming years.”
