Calcutta: Cries of Aschhe bochhor abar hobe rent the air as idols were immersed in the Hooghly. Taking it all in from the riverbank at Babughat was a man who had no such promise to fall back on when the flight he was in - the Uruguyan Air Force Flight 571 - crashlanded in the Andes in 1972. He and 15 of his mates came back from the dead weeks after the world had given up on them.

Gustavo Zerbino is one of the survivors of El Milagro de los Andes (the miracle of the Andes) that has since spawned at least 15 books, including the authorised account Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivor by Piers Paul Read that was made into the film Alive, starring Ethan Hawke. While 29 passengers had succumbed - "16 died in the crash, eight in avalanche, two of bleeding and the last three of gangrene," Zerbino rattled off - the 16 survivors became national heroes.

The 67-year-old was in Calcutta on an invitation from Jaydeep Mukherjee, whose travel agency Meghdutam has been trying to promote Durga Puja abroad. "He had walked in at the screening of a documentary film on Puja I was hosting in Madrid and was captivated. Now here he is, crisscrossing the city during Puja," said Mukherjee.

"I came to be part of this amazing presentation of goddess Durga. I was in a lot of pandals and saw the wonderful messages conveyed in each," gushed the man, who is now a sought-after motivational speaker, having inspired the Uruguay football team to two World Cups.

Zerbino was a first-year medical school student when he took the flight to Chile to play a rugby friendly. "In the middle of the Andes, there was no life for 300km around us. At 12,000ft, without proper clothes your fingers will freeze in five minutes and you will die of hypothermia. At night, the temperature fell 30 degrees below freezing point."

A colleague built a radio and managed to tune into a transmission. "He told us the search for us had been abandoned and our fate was in our own hands. Sheltered in the plane wreckage, we started planning." Zerbino made sleeping bags out of insulation from the tail section of the plane using a sewing kit salvaged from a passenger's cosmetics bag. "Adversity pushes you to creativity," he said, letting out a sigh when reminded they had fed on the flesh of dead co-passengers when food ran out. "It was a difficult choice. We would have died otherwise."

After two mates trekked for 10 days across the mountain and reached civilisation help came for the rest 72 days after the crash. Zerbino was the last one to take the flight out, with a "big bag of belongings of friends who did not make it".

He said he could connect with Bengal's reverence for Durga. "In the mountains, we prayed to Maria for 73 nights. Durga is like Maria."

Zerbino was 19 when he undertook that fateful journey but ask him when he was born and he says: "This morning. I start a new life every day."