Ranna puja, or cooking festival, is common in the villages of Bengal. The ritual involves cleaning of the kitchen and the earthen hearth and then cooking through the entire day of the puja. The food is left overnight and is eaten the next day. The day after Ranna puja is arandhan, or abstinence from lighting the hearth or cooking. Although this is primarily a religious festival there are other examples of arandhan in Howrah, which were not done on religious grounds.

One such occasion was before Kshudiram Bose’s execution. The execution was fixed for August 11, 1908. On August 10, a procession was out on the roads of Howrah, led by Howrah Anusilan Samity. They requested people to abstain from cooking the next day.

On another occasion, in 1923, a married woman, who had been abducted by Mohanto Satish Giri in Tarakeshwar, had fled captivity. The incident had caused agitation in Calcutta and Howrah, specially because the woman was married in Howrah. The agitation in Howrah included violation of law and order for which several people were arrested. Ananda Samaj, in Howrah, a social organisation, had taken out a procession requesting common people to observe a single day’s fast and abstain from cooking in their homes as a protest against the Tarakeshwar case.