Yaa Devii Sarva-Bhuutessu Smrti-Ruupenna Samsthitaa...

या देवी सर्वभूतेषु स्मृतिरूपेण संस्थिता...

(The Devi who resides in all creatures in the form of Memories)

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

That email reminder landed in my Spam folder about **TSDP (Tri-State Durga Puja 2025) Book Your Passes Now!"** with many emojis, few punctuations but liberally sprinkled with exclamations, like a brass band at midnight. Ready to take a chunk of my ever-shrinking wallet (now to the tune of $500 for a family of four!), and that’s before any kids whine if Uber Eats can deliver biryani or pizza to the venue because the prasad is "too meh." I guess I missed out on the 'early bird' discount of $25 offered previously, which came among the multiple personal appeals from the widows / barristers / heirs of deceased Nigerian tycoons / Arab oil ministers / Hong Kong bankers with a promise of enriching me to a $35 millions guaranteed, waiting for me at a well-known international Bank in an account with no other known claimants.

The moment I saw this latest email, I was yanked back in time. Like a well-worn cassette tape played too many times, now being rewound with a pencil.

First, the Mahalaya! How could one forget that sacred annual rite, the descent of Durga ma from heaven. Mahishasura Mardini broadcast by AIR Calcutta, the gravelly, goosebump-inducing voice of Birendra Krishna Bhadra. That one broadcast had more gravitas than all the local pandits of combined, even if they were chanting from atop the shikhar of Baidyanath Dham with a harmonium and tabla accompaniment.

Let’s be honest: no household in our lane worth its hot jhalmuri fame would ever start the Pujo season listening to some upstart Akashvani Patna version, however well-meaning. It was simply not done. We all may have lived hundreds of kilometers away in a dusty lane where cows outnumbered cars and the power outage every time you so much as looked at the ceiling fan switch, but come 4:00 AM on Mahalaya, the antenna was positioned like a NASA satellite pointing toward Calcutta. Radio Ceylon wasn't on the air at that hour, not that it could hold a candle to the Mahalaya.

I still remember our hulking Bush radio, a temperamental beast that only worked if you smacked it just right and held the dial about halfway between two stations. Only occasional adjustment of the antenna on the rooftop (don't ask why, it just worked) needed. My dad would begin "prepping the radio” the night before, with warning to anyone not to touch any knobs before the event.

And then it would begin. That first slow gong, the WouuuuWoooooooOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHH the shankhnaad, followed by that unmistakable, otherworldly voice:

"Ya Devi Sarvabhuteshu..."

Shivers. Literal shivers. We may not have known Sanskrit, but we mumbled all the words the best we could and hummed along with sleepy but reverent confusion.

No matter how sleepy you were, how cold the floor tiles felt under your bare feet, or how grim the prospect of "back to school" loomed for later that week. When Sri Bhadra began to chant, everything else stopped. Even the canine sentries outside seemed to pause and listen quietly, only adding awooooo, their bovine colleagues  lowing bwannnnn occasionally along with the shankhanaad.

Us kids from the neighborhood, even the ones who would spend the rest of the year chanting only cricket scores, would  show up early, hair slicked back hastily, eyes groggy, reporting for their cultural duty. To us, AIR Calcutta was the voice of the goddess. Everything else was… background noise.

Even now, decades later, in the age of Spotify playlists and Dolby surround sound systems, I wake up on Mahalaya mornings, plug in my headphones, and find the original broadcast with all the hisses and crackles, not the remastered version, nor the “modernistic reinterpretation” with techno beats and celebrity narrators of dubious fame. Just the hiss, crackle, the gong, and the ancient voice that has announced Durga’s arrival for generations. Because some things, my friends, just can’t be improved upon. Just like second helpings of prasad.

Back to our sleepy little town, a place so unhurried, even the cows looked like they were on permanent sabbatical. The Durga Puja then wasn't just a festival, it was the social event of the year, a kind of the annual meet of Oscars and the Olympics, all wrapped in the holy scent of incense, the blowing of conch shells, the piercing peals of big brass bells, the reverberations of the gong that you felt in your bones, the beats of dholkaks, garlands of fresh marigolds, and a little whiff of... Old Monk furtively hidden under Old Spice.

The ladies, my God, the ladies! They dressed like the warrior deity herself, going into spiritual battle to slay the buffalo demon. Crimson and gold saris, sindoor applied to their top with the precision of snipers, bangles clanking, armpits dusted with talcum powder, dressed to slay, ready to summon the divine goddess in unison. Their makeup? Let's just say there were contouring techniques resulting in gleaming faces with layers of Lakmé, Nivea or Ponds creams and other secret cosmetic concoctions with homemade kajol sharpened eyelashes. Modern-day fashionistas are only now barely beginning to fathom the art and science and magic from that era's beauty secrets.

The men? They played their part with dhoti-kurtas that looked recently ironed by resentful household help. But the moment the pushpanjali was done and the priest turned his back, you’d see them edging toward the back gate, one by one, with the stealth of teenage boys sneaking into an A-rated movie. A cough, a nod, a furtive rustling, and out came the Charminars and the hip flask of Old Monk, passed around like contraband joy it was. The smoke of sin mixed freely with the fragrance of  devotion.

Meanwhile, the neighborhood girls, Rimi, Jhuma, Bibui, Pinki, etc. transformed overnight into ethereal beings in their mothers’ borrowed saris and clunky nagra juti's, glowing cheeks, walking around like they were floating on a cloud of faint jasmine perfume, upturned noses in the universal pose of teen indifference. Babul took one look at his younger sister and expressed all the brotherly love he could muster with an explosive "ewwww." Suddenly, these girls whom we’d previously seen with dirt on their faces, skinned knees and sharp elbows flying in the neighborhood games were now transformed into mini-me versions of their moms, the stuff of adolescent dreams and future heartbreaks.

My friend Babul and I, blissfully unencumbered by fashion or hormones (those would hit later, like an overdue freight train), had only two goals: scoring extra prasad without being caught in the act, and, glaring with naked envy at the richer kids whose parents had armed them with actual money to spend at the pop-up shops, patakha hawkers and food stalls.

We’d try everything, wearing our shirts inside out, changed hairstyles from meticulously combed to unkempt, invented names (“No, uncle, I’m Boolu from 4A, not Babul of 4B!”), all to get our grubby little paws on another ladle of prasad. Mostly, it worked if you were polite and put on an Oliver Twist act. Aunties, volunteers at prasad tables, were our favorite targets. We had learned quickly that these ladies with the ladles were kinder than others and would let us have seconds with an amused half-frown half-twinkle in their eyes.

Even back then, the men sat in huddles, whisper-shouting about "international politics" in between puffs, nodding gravely about "global gondogol", of a secret See Eye Eh active in what was called a cold bar or coal war between the Ouesht and the Commies, of nuclear tests in faraway lands causing scorching summers in our once-cool hilly town, and someone whose name sounded like Mousey Dung. They would subtly eye the fares from the samosa stall. Never mind that half of them probably thought NATO was a new detergent powder competing with Nirma.

Attendance was free. Free! As in zero rupees, zero guilt. You didn’t need to mortgage your house to attend Durga Puja. You just needed a relatively clean shirt and a love for the goddess (or at least for the prasad).

Now, flash forward to TSDP 2025, a gathering, the tri-states of IN, KY, OH in the Midwest. There are online ticketing portals, apps, wristbands, QR codes, VIP darshan queues, catered meals with “gluten-free” options, and kids who ask if there’s WiFi at the mandap. The prasad comes in sealed plastic containers with their own QR codes detailing all nut-free, dairy-free ingredients, purity guaranteed, sodium levels specified, added sugar quantity and calories accounted for, duly sanctified by the pandits. And don't even get me started on the bhadralok (nothing to do with Sri Bhadra, though), still discussing global goondagardi or was it gandogol. Now armed with smartphones, fully informed with the latest WhatsCrapp forwards, sipping single malt, gathered around ugly Tesla trucks.

Somehow, the soul of Puja remains intact. The smell of incense. The first beat of the dhak. The droopy eyes of men and women in a trance, young and old, as they dance the Dhunuchi naach, all their bones still believe in the goddess. The kids running around these days wear Hoka sneakers, impossibly clean, that could not have survived a single day in such pristine conditions during our younger days like those Bata ones. The aunties who still scream names across the crowd like it’s a hostage negotiation.

Somewhere in the shadows, maybe behind the food trucks, there’s still a group of men, quietly lighting up a cig. Pouring a discreet nip of Kentucky Bourbon. Generous splashing of Old Spice for an ineffective mask. For old times’ sake.

May your personal demons be vanquished and discarded with the sandals outside Durga ma's pandals. May you  find the true spirit of Puja being not a Shibboleth of any narrow vision of being a part of any community, heritage or "-ism."

May your prasad be plentiful, your nostalgia poignant. May the joyful memories of your childhoods make you tingly and warm like a blanket in wintertime, now perhaps only in the mandaps of your minds. May the AIR Calcutta of your inner Mahalaya always come in classic, pure, with all the original static, electrifying, wherever you are.

Shubho Pujo, friends.