Bijoya Dashami

4-day long Durga Puja ends today with both joy and sorrow, both light and shade.

Journey to a village

Today, I began my journey to a village - Bandipur by auto rickshaw.

Colourful sky

Sunset. I am now crossing the railway track looking on the sky. It so colourful!

Village green, village sky

Its about to dusk. I am returning home after visiting a village. Green crops, evening sky and the far football ground of the village attracts me.

On the way

I am going to my village this morning to see Durga Puja.

Village puja

Then I went to another 'para' or locality of the village - Chakraborty Para. I have seen the lighted pandal from far. Then I went to the premises. It is a permanent 'bedi' for goddess Durga. The roof decorated with brilliant lightings. The image is nice as the previous years. The 'Dol mancha' i.e. the place of Radha-Krishna brightly decorated.

Village puja

Spending some time, I went to the village of of my father-in-law. Name of the village - Bandipur. The village situated in Hooghly district of West Bengal. It is a very old village and Durga Puja's organise here since the British Raj. I spent the day here with the family of my wife. My sister-in-law came at noon with her husband. That means, a kind of get together! Then, at evening, I visited some of puja's there. At first, I visit puja of Hattola. The image of this puja is really beautiful! These pics are from there.

Our Community Puja

Today 'Mahastami' - second day of the rituals. So I first went to our community puja. The first picture is the puja pandal. Behind the pandal, yellow colour building is the high school of our village. Devotees pay homage to the goddess by "puspanjali" just after the puja. Here, in the second picture you can see my neighbours pays "puspanjali" this morning. Clay image of the goddess can also be viewed in this and subsequent photos.

Belur Math - 25 Sept.

'Mahisasur' is being killed by the goddess. Mythologically, he was the demon and captured the heaven - the residence of gods and goddesses. Then the power emerges and converted to an woman called Debi Durga. A great battle occurred in which the demon (green colour) was killed by the weapon of the goddess. The demon usually had an image of buffalo which is lying on the foot of the goddess.

Belur Math - 25 Sept.

Goddess Durga comes also with her two sons. One is Kartick and he rides on peacock.

Belur Math - 25 Sept.

Goddess Durga comes with her two daughters - Laxmi & Saraswati.

Belur Math - 25 Sept.

Goddess Durga comes with her other son - Ganesh. He has the head of elephant. His wife is banana tree usually wrapped with either a banana leaf or a green cloth which is standing on the right hand side of the god.

Belur Math - 25 Sept.

Goddess Durga has ten implements on her ten hands.

Belur Math - 25 Sept.

The 'ghat' of the rituals is decorated with garlands and cloth. It is called "bhadra mandal". The priest performing the rituals for the "bhadra mandal". It is a part of Durga Puja of Belur Math. The performance made on this morning.

Belur Math - 25 Sept.

'saptami' puja at the Math.

Belur Math - 25 Sept.

Debi Durga in this day of 'Saptami' at Belur Math.