She loved everything about Durga Puja but not the jostling on the streets and in pandals to catch one glimpse of the divine mother. So her husband encouraged her to start her own Durga Puja.

Meet Shipra Sahay, around 60, who started Matri Sangha Durga Puja Samiti in Ranchi in 2006, an all-women Puja at BK Sahay Compound, the Sahays’ ancestral property, on well-known Udhav Babu Lane near Lalpur thana.

Asked about the all-women Puja, Sahay smiled and said, “It’s a very small and intimate affair. I live here alone, but my neighbours are very helpful. Also, I am associated with a Nari Samiti whose members help me. In all, five women, including me, belong to the core group, but many help me with the Puja.”

Sahay said they did not go for door-to-door collection of subscriptions but managed to collect around Rs 40,000 via donations from neighbours and friends. “That’s spent on organising the Puja in a modest way. Our idol is no higher than six feet. Volunteers contribute rice, pulses, vegetables and milk for bhog that is prepared on all the three days, Saptami, Asthami and Navami. Each day, around 150 people have the bhog,” she said.

The bhog offered to the deity is prepared by a Nari Samiti member. A hired cook makes the bhog for people, including the underprivileged.

Sahay, who runs a small nursery school, remembered her late husband Ram Kishore Sahay’s encouragement.

“Son of B.K. Sahay, a bureaucrat in colonial times, my husband had been a banker and had a very progressive outlook to life. When I said I loved Durga Puja but did not like pandal-hopping, he immediately said, can’t you organise a small community Puja yourself? I discussed this with Pranati Mitra, a close neighbour. She and her daughter Mridula thought it was a great idea. So a handful of us started the Puja in 2006.”

Her husband passed away, so did her neighbour Pranati. The Mitra family shifted from there. But other neighbours joined Sahay. “The yearly Puja is a great solace now that my son and daughter are settled elsewhere,” Sahay said. “There’s no show, but the Puja is performed very sincerely, following rituals and timings, and you get peace here.”

She added people also loved the sound of the traditional dhaak played by drummers from Bengal’s Bankura. On Vijaya Dashami, when they all go to the pond at Jail Road, 1.5km away, for immersion, there are very few dry eyes, she said. “And then the wait starts, for the next year.”