Puja at Devlali

This Durga Puja I headed to my parents place in Devlali(where else?).Sis also had a break, so was pretty excited. The spoiler though was the 30 hour long journey from Kharagpur to Devlali, that made sure I wasn't able to sleep for 2 nights straight,with Dee in the same compartment it was getting boring by the hour .Reached Devlali at 2am.Mom and Dad were there.

They were in the Devlali Puja Committee. Spearheaded by the zealous Col Kallat and his wife,who also happen to be our neighbours , the decor was picture perfect. The flowers, the pandal everything looked just made for a grand wedding...... I mean even the civil puja organisers would have gone green ,had they seen the pandal. The pratima was well decorated as well.

However, more than the puja itself ,there are three things that make puja so special- new clothes, cultural prog. at night and of course bhog. This puja had all three in abundance.

Right from sashti, the cultural programs kick started. Sashti had the "local talent" , that is the cantonment people performing.All my three folks sang a song, and thanks to my mom,I was being asked to sing as well.I was like Do you want the people to go helter skelter?


Bhog on saptami was good.

We missed the magic show that evening.

Show on ashtami had some group, with some crappy name. Was it BOOM, Dhoom......I dont quite remember. They had the bollywood songs and men and women wearing weird pajamas and ganjis doing some zombie-meets-Mithun kinda dance. The compere had a perfect voice for doing advertisement campaigns for local hakims, with his signature JEE HAAN ,PEHLI BAAR AAPKE SAAMNE AA RAHE HAI. He claimed that even bollywood stars pay to see his performers dance, and I was like --FOR EXAMPLE?? They had some "famous" comedian from laughter challenge as well , to do a standup. Seriously I didn't get his jokes. All the officers and their wives were going gaga over him though. Even people like, Maulik,Kapil or say Kalyan for that matter( they are people in my dept with similar tastes in humor), would not laugh at him.


Take this for eg.
His wife asked him Jee aap mujhse kitna pyaar karte ho??
"2 kg", was his answer.

Anyways, it was a great time pass event on the whole.

At dinner, a girl I just met few minutes ago, was making me look silly in front of half a dozen kids. No matter what you tell her , she had an answer to it,a blunt answer, but an answer. If she is reading this- MADAM,please do consider a future in politics.

Navami bhog was good as well. The event at night was good enough.

Dashami , Visarjan............Sindur khela.I reached a little late at the venue.Sindur khela is not a male thing anyways. But the same girl smeared me with sindur. With a red dot on my nose,I was the fat Rudolf around.On the way to the river,we both were in the same car. With two more kiddos in the same car , she bajaoed me there as well. This time it was even worse. Thank god I made it...alive.The stigma of getting bajaoed by a 2 year junior , in public, is ineffable.Trust me when I say that. In a duration of 1 day and one night she called me a "loner",a "freak", "janam se chor" and what not.She even elbowed my poor stomach on numerous occassions. I am sure those two kiddos must be thinking JEEZ!!!WHAT A LOSER THIS FAT RUDOLF IS.


Visarjan is an emotional thing for all bongs. I am not that big a fan of getting wet, but on being asked by an officer to take a matka in the river ,I obliged. This girl got me wet there as well.GOD I wanna take my revenge..MADAM !!!YOU WATCH OUT,..I AM COMING BACK SOON.

This is how the puja went this autumn.Could have been better without that girl, though. :P