Pataudi scion at puja

Bollywood star Sara Ali Khan was in Salt Lake on Navami and that too at three different pujas.

“She had actually come as the celebrity guest of our dandiya programme Jashn-e-Dandiya at New Town’s Westin hotel,” said Akash Tiwari, who runs Kaash Events based in BG Block. “But the day before flying down Sara said she wants to see a Durga puja pandal.”

Once Sara, the daughter of Saif Ali Khan and Amrita Singh and the granddaughter of Sharmila Tagore and Nawab M.A. Khan of Pataudi, landed at Calcutta airport on Navami afternoon, Tiwari arranged a visit to the Tala Park Pratyay puja. But she loved it so much that she wanted to see more.

“I told her I'd take her around when the crowds were thin but Sara wanted to go there and then,” said Tiwari, a resident of New Town’s Rosedale Garden complex. “It would be a logistical nightmare. The police had not been informed, it was prime time in the evening and we only had six bouncers, my cousin Ayush Jain and I escorting her. It was a challenge but we took it up.”

Tiwari pulled some strings and visited three Salt Lake pujas — AE (Part 1), BJ and DL.

The puja organisers — though delighted — were taken by surprise. “I got a call from Akash 15 minutes before Sara came. I was present at the pandal then and we arranged whatever we could. Sara liked the theme and execution. She got several pictures clicked and even performed aarti before the idol,” said block secretary Supriyo Chakraborty.

Next she went to CK-CL Block, where a drama was being staged. “The event managers asked me not to announce her visit, citing crowd management problems but people in the pandal recognised her anyway and rushed for photographs and autographs,” said block secretary Shanti Ranjan Paul. “Sara went up to the feet of the idol, watched the priest performing aarti and then quietly left.”

The last stop was DL Block, where the PR convenor Mayukh Majumdar said the Kedarnath actress was pleased with the simplicity. “At other places she had been seeing theme pujas but our Durga was traditional daker saaj and it was new for her. She was modest, polite and left like she had come - like a storm,” said Majumdar.

Tiwari claims this was Sara’s first visit to the city and to its famed puja pandals. “She couldn’t stay for long but fans — especially children — managed to get a photo or autograph with her here and there,” he said.