Members of Aurobinda Setu Sarbajanin in Ultadanga have been visiting senior citizens in the neighbourhood with requests not to step out even for anjali. The club has put up loudspeakers across the neighbourhood for the mantra to be heard by all residents from home.

A group of villagers in East and West Midnapore who lost their livelihood because of Cyclone Amphan did up two pandals in the city, one in Shyambazar and the other in the Girish Park area.

An LED screen outside the 41 Pally Club pandal in Haridevpur will enable the passerby to view the decoration inside and the idol while abiding by the high court order.

Though organisers were unsure till recently what the scale of the festival would be or if they would be able to allow visitors, many of them went ahead with the preparations adhering to the True Spirit Puja guidelines, that this year is also mandating adherence to Covid-safety protocol.

Badamtala Ashar Sangha Gautam Bose

Judges at the CESC The Telegraph True Spirit Puja (TSP) 2020, in association with David & Goliath, with Friends 91.9 FM as radio partner and ABP Ananda as television news partner, had to wear the additional Covid lens even as they evaluated over 200 pujas across Calcutta and Howrah virtually from the confines of their homes.

A modest pandal, Shyambazar Pally Sangha, was decorated with sea shells, but what caught the attention of the judges was their social commitment, a key TSP parameter, pandemic or no pandemic.

“When we visited a village in East Midnapore after Cyclone Amphan with relief, we saw that they had suffered huge losses. We employed the same people to make the pandal for us,” said secretary Subrata Bhattacharya.

Salkia Chhatra Byayam Samiti, which portrays a village Durga dalan complete with a tulsi mancha, had put up flexes with pictures of their visits to deliver relief to Amphan-hit villages.

Kankurgachhi Yubak Brinda Telegraph picture

Chorebagan Sarbojanin Durgotsab Samity in the Girish Park area also scored by generating jobs for around 80 artisans during the pandemic who came from a village in West Midnapore. They would have gone without work otherwise, said the general secretary of the club, Jayanta Banerjee.

Tarun Sangha (Baghajatin) has put up microphones in the entire neighbourhood so that the people in the locality do not miss out on the rituals. “If they cannot come to the pandal we have to reach out to them and hence we have put microphones in the entire para, which will enable the 1,000 families to listen to the rituals and the anjali mantra from their homes during the pandemic,” said secretary Dibyendu Sekhar Bhowmick.

Several puja committees have laid stress on sanitisation. At Thakurpukur SB Park, last year’s Model Puja, 14 sanitising stands had been set up alongside the bamboo barricade with social distancing circles marked on the ground. There is even a robot equipped with sensors that dispenses sanitiser once a visitor places his hand in front of it. “It can also be made to dispense masks,” club member Sanjay Majumdar said, demonstrating the robot’s action on his mobile phone as someone approached it and sanitised his hand.

Rajdanga Naboday Sangha in Kasba Telegraph picture

Puja organisers are not sticking to sanitisation inside the pandal only. For example, Badamtala Ashar Sangha has hired an agency to sanitise the area outside the pandal everyday. “We have to keep the area sanitised also so that people walking or driving past feel safe even while maintaining the legitimate distance from the pandal,” said club member Subhradip Pal.

The puja that has recreated Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali offers drive-in darshan. Which means one can drive by and see the idol without getting off the car. Initially, the organisers had created two lanes, one for pandal-hoppers and the other for those on foot.

“Now we can keep only one lane to maintain the distance from the lane and we will allow small cars and pedestrians through it. We have over 25 volunteers managing the crowd,” said Pal.

A robot that dispenses sanitiser and masks if a visitor places his or her hand in front of it at Thakurpukur SB Park Telegraph picture

Many of the pujas have stocked up on sanitisers and a few like Behala Friends Club have also kept an oxygen cylinder. At Rajdanga Naboday Sangha, in Kasba, one can sanitise one’s hands and also phones.

Kankurgachhi Yubak Brinda have been sanitising the interior of their pandal also. Judges saw a volunteer accosting a worker who was entering the pandal without a mask. In August, the club had organised a blood donation camp to meet the crisis during the pandemic.

Salkia Chhatra Byayam Samiti had set up a sanitising tunnel and also a Covid counter stocked with fog machine, thermal gun, pulse oxymeter and sanitiser bottles. At Shibmandir, the sanitising process was on when the judges connected with the organisers on video conference.

The Machuabazar Sarvajanik Durga Puja Committee provided devices and data recharge to children in the locality to attend online classes, many of whom could not make ends meet during the lockdown.

In several of the pandals like Yubadal in the Bowbazar area, the underlying theme was fighting the pandemic or Amphan through drawings that showed how the doctors, policemen are helping fight Covid-19.

Lalabagan Sarbojanin in Maniktala, which had designed its pandal such that the idol can be seen from the road, also saluted Covid workers through motifs on their pandal walls.

The plea of each of them perhaps is enshrined in the message put up atop the entry of Telengabagan Sarbojanin Durgotsab Committee — Kichhhu chai na Ma go, Corona mukti chhara (We want nothing, O Mother, except freedom from Corona). The pandal — open on three sides, as prescribed by the government — has put up a giant screen to allow visitors to watch the idol from afar.

The club is in an area which was a containment zone in the past and has looked after its affected neighbours. So did members of neighbouring Aurobinda Setu Sarbajanin. “There was a family of three which got infected. We reached them provisions for 13 days,” said club secretary Mintu Patra. Helping each other out in distress, even when there is no Puja around the corner, is what True Spirit is all about.