New Town set to give tough competition to North and South Kolkata pujas

Kolkata: More than 70 pujas are being held across New Town this year. These pujas promise to be big crowd-pullers giving a tough competition to eminent Durga pujas of South and North Kolkata.

According to the locals of the area, these pujas also give an opportunity to the residents to interact and know each other better.

Among these 70 pujas, carving a space for itself in just one year since its inception in 2022, the theme for New Town Sarbojanin Durgotsav Samiti - organisers of the first all-woman community Durga Puja in the township last year - this year is ‘Komol Gandhar’.

With less than two weeks to go for Durga Puja, Kolkata community pujas are putting in their best efforts to impress the pandal hoppers with innovative themes.

Working on the same lines, the Puja committees of the New Town area are also gearing up to challenge these prominent Kolkata pujas with their innovative and traditional styles.

Last year, the New Town Sarbojanin recorded a whopping footfall of nearly one lakh each day.

This year, the theme portrays a soft look of Goddess Durga with her ‘trishul’ placed like a musical instrument. Additionally, the pandal and its interiors are being decorated based on the Kangra Valley paintings from Himachal Pradesh besides other miniature paintings.

The pandal and other decorative objects are being made out of wood and bamboo.

Giving the pandal a 360 degree view for people to be able gaze at it from all sides, the artist Anirban Das has decorated the pandal on lines of a ‘sheesh mahal’.

Moreover, Das has taken it upon himself to make the idol of Goddesses and Gods at the spot.

Besides the New Town Sorbojanin, another Puja — DB Block Sorbojanin in New Town — is vying to make a spot among pandal hoppers with its theme — ‘swapner udaan chandrayaan’. According to the organisers, they had conceived the theme since when the whole country was eagerly waiting for the ‘Vikram Lander’ of Chandrayaan to touch the Moon.

Organisers claimed that their effort this year is to pay tribute to the ISRO and its scientists. They have also invited one of the Bengali scientists of Chandrayaan-3 project, Soumyajit Chattopadhyay who was looking after a crucial part of the software division.

The pandal is made like a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), commonly known as the rocket which was named as the ‘Chandrayaan’. Inside the pandal, there will be models of Chandrayaan 1 and 2 along with the ‘Vikram Lander’. The Durga Puja of DD block in New Town is going to be performed in a traditional manner to keep the spirit of togetherness.

The housing complexes in New Town are also following the footsteps to celebrate the biggest festival of Bengal.