The Durga idol at the house of Dipak Roy. A Telegraph picture.

Siliguri, Oct. 15: For a handful of families in town, the Pujas mean much more than fun and frolic.

Steeped in oitijyo (heritage), the family Pujas (barir pujo), about four in number, find special mention in the trade hub for their relentless efforts to keep the legacy alive.

“Ours is a 300-year-old Puja,” claimed Phanindra Nath Roy of the Rathkhola area. “Though we do not know the exact year when the annual Durga Puja became a part of our family tradition, we have evidence to suggest that it used to be organised much before the times of my grandfather Ishan Chandra Roy, who led the peasants’ movement against the British in Pabna district (now in Bangladesh) in 1873,” the octogenarian added.

The tradition was under threat when the Roys were forced to migrate to India “some time before” the 1947 partition.

“Given our economic condition it was not possible to organise the Puja on the grand scale of our ancestral home,” he said. “We carried on the tradition by worshipping the goddess with the ghot (earthen pot), which is the most important part of Durga Puja. In the last 10 years, my son has reintroduced the Durga idol in our household.”

“The whole Puja is done exactly in the manner of our desher bari (ancestral home) and we are proud to be a part of such an old tradition,” said Sima, the daughter-in-law of the house. “It is unique in a number of ways — like in our Puja we offer machher bhog (offerings of fish). A large number of guests visit us on the Puja days and we treat them to lavish bhog.”

One significant aspect of these Pujas is that the festivities begin right from Mahalaya, and the idol is usually made at the house itself.

“From Mahalaya we have dhakis playing while the artisans give the final touches to the idol in our house itself,” said Sanjukta, the daughter of Hakimpara’s Dipak Roy, a doctor who has been carrying on the Puja started by his father in the 1960s.

The idol in the Roy household does not have the mahish (buffalo) but only Durga and the asura (demon) as a symbolic protest against animal sacrifice, Sanjukta said, adding that she hardly leaves the house during the Pujas.

For the Pauls of Hakimpara’s Durgabari it is a time when the joint family comes together. “My husband has three brothers. With them their wives, all our children and our mother-in-law, ours is a family of 20 and the Pujas are the time when we all get together,” said Bithika Paul, one of the daughters-in-law.

The Durgabari Puja enters its 34th year. “From tomorrow, all the women of the house will start preparing khoi, naru, murki, which will constitute the prasad,” she explained. “Come what may, we do not offer the Devi, prasad made by others.”