The drumroll for next year’s Durga puja has already started at Dum Dum Park where the area’s oldest puja is set to turn 75. On Sunday, at a musical soiree held on the road facing their pandal site, adjacent to the Kali temple, Dum Dum Park Sarbojanin unveiled its next year’s Puja artiste — Sanatan Dinda.
The celebrated artist has agreed to take charge of the next year’s idol while the pandal will be created by his former associate Tapas Dutta. Though it was too early to formulate their plans, Dinda, fresh off the success of his Nalin Sarkar Street creation, was ready to air his views. “The sense of festivity will be there as long as I make idols for Durga puja. The colour palette may become black and white, or even gray, but not at the cost of the feel of utsab. It is people’s puja, funded by people’s money. You can’t play with people’s emotion,” Dinda told The Telegraph Salt Lake.
On being asked to explain, he elaborated: “You can’t force art down people’s throat, without any introduction. White cube (a gallery aesthetic of white walls and illumination from the ceiling) is alien to common people, for which our parents’ generation is to blame, and we as well. But when we are trying to introduce art slowly into the mainstream, it is better not to make it inscrutable. We need to remember that people get barely five to 10 minutes in a pandal.”
Dinda’s welcome on stage was rapturous. At the stroke of 9pm when he went up, flower pots were lit as he waved to the audience of local residents. As club member Subhrajit Majumdar felicitated Dinda, another member Jaya Chatterjee standing in front of the stage got emotional. “Dum Dum Park Sarbojanin hip hip hurray,” she cried, as others joined in chorus. “Who knew we would reach such a grand day?” she told the others, teary-eyed.
This will be Dinda’s second puja in Dum Dum Park, after having done Dum Dum Tarun Dal in 2019 with theme-maker Anirban Das.
The organizers had invited members of neighbouring Puja clubs — Bharat Chakra, Tarun Sangha, Tarun Dal, Yubak Brinda, Mile-mishe, Prafulla Kanan and Rabindra Nagar Sporting Club as well as local clubs, like Chhannachhara and Amra Sabai. The neighbours shared memories of bursting cap with toy pistols or offering their first anjali at the Dum Dum Park Sarbojanin pandal in their own childhood.
A prominent element in the stage backdrop was a logo created by local residents Pratim Bhattacharya and Prasanta Roy.
After the opening act, the band Pheri, veteran singer Nachiketa Chakraborty stirred nostalgia by singing a couple of his hits, like Nilanjana. The final act of the soiree was Sujoy Bhowmik, with his repertoire of mostly RD Burman and Kishore Kumar songs.
Saluting the old guard
The puja also felicitated elderly neighbours who had a major role in the puja’s history, like Dipali Mukherjee, wife of the puja’s first secretary Sunil Mukherjee, and Ajay Bhushan De, who was the secretary from 1975 to 1984. The 86-year-old shared memories of the starting years with The Telegraph Salt Lake.
Elderly neighbours linked to the early years of Dum Dum Park Sarbojanin inaugurate the curtain-raiser to the 75th edition
“Our puja started in 1951. We settled here in 1959 after I passed I.Sc. In those days, land in this area used to be sold only to refugee families from east Bengal for a token payment of Rs 1,750 for five cottahs. In those days, subscriptions were not much. We depended on contributions in kind. Someone would contribute 2kg rice for Ashtami bhog and someone would donate the daal. On Dashami evening, we would go pandal-hopping after spending the entire puja in our own pandal. Immersion would be held on Ekadashi. Other regular features were a variety cultural programme and a jatra.”
The order for the idol, he said, would be placed a month in advance at Kumartuli. “Jessore Road was our sole road connection to the rest of the city, especially the buses on route 36, which started from Lalkuthi. What is now VIP Road was narrow, without today’s mastic asphalt coat and stopped at Baguiati. It was only in the 60s that it was extended till the airport. Big boats used to carry hay stacks collected from the paddy fields all around along the Bagjola Canal loaded at what used to be called Bichuli Ghat. We had to cross bamboo bridges to reach the Salt Lake side, which was a sandy wilderness. The culverts were built in the early 60s.”
Seeing this puja turn 75 is an emotional moment for De. “I had helmed it for so many years. Now my son Malay is Samity secretary,” he said, refusing to budge from his second row seat through the programme despite the blare of the sound boxes.