Durga Pooja – the highlight of West Bengal

Durga pooja is an annual Indian festival in the month of October and celeberated mainly in the Eastern India state of West Bengal. Its a ten day festival celebrated at home and in public places with a stage and decorations that can be found in residential localities, public squares and roadsides.. The celeberations include prayer, family visits, giving of gifts, feasting and finally processions.

The festival marks the victory of godess Durga over evil and partly a harvest festival demonstrating power over life and creation. The primary focus is on godess Durga but also includes other hindu deities such as Ganesha, Lakshmi, Saraswati, Kartikeya. On the tenth day the idol is taken in procession and immersed in a river or lake.

Durga pooja is recorded as far back as the 14th century and history says royalty and wealthy families sponcerd durga pooja festivals from the 16th century. The occasion is not just religious but also a social occasion for families to meet. During the festival, life in the city comes to a stop. Offices are closed and the roads are filled with Durga celeberations. Its a major festival in Eastern India. For a street photographer, such occasions offer unlimited opportunities to make images.

Making the idols is a long process requiring skill and patience over many months in the summer before they can be ready for the Durga pooja in October. The making starts with a prayer to Ganesha. These idols are made from clay, carefully shaped with large idols being build on a platform of bamboo or wood. The base is clay and the idol is then built up with straw, and using moulds with jute. The heads, hands and fingures are made seperately and attached to the main body. Once dry, the idols are painted in bright colours, dressed and decorated.

Living in Chennai, in South India we do not see major Durga Pooja celeberations. However this year a group of artisans from Bengal arrived and started making Durga idols in a old shed in the heart of the city. They eat, sleep and work in the shed for months untill the idols are made ready to be sold and then they move on to another part of India. Clearly these idols were intended for the small Bengali resident population of Chennai. It wasnt long before word got around and the visitors started seeing a few photographers arrive to record the process. Not withstanding the language problem, with the visitors speaking Bengali and the South Indians speaking Tamil, the photographers were made welcome.

All images are made in available light with increased ISO to 800-1600 and slow shutter speed in order to capture the atmosphere of the place. The clay idols having no colour were processed to monochrome ( see seperate gallery) while the almost finished idols are best viewed in colour. These images are shot on a Fuji XE3 with the standard 18~55mm lens with files processed in Affinity photo.