This Time: Durga Puja in Kolkata

October 5^th, 2011

When I arrived in Kolkata ten days earlier, I was high off this city. I was enjoying it so much that it could do no wrong. Then I spent a few days away in the hill stations of northern Bengal and Sikkim. When I got back, things seemed different. I had become so relaxed so quickly in the calm mountain atmosphere that the return to the city was like a sucker punch to the gut. I couldn’t figure out what had seemed magical about it before. I felt that everyone was out to make my life harder by whatever means necessary. I didn’t understand why people couldn’t simply be kind and friendly like they were in the mountains.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, though. Kolkata can be an endless obstacle source. Something as simple as going to an internet café was now more difficult than it had been five years before. When I first walked into the same internet café that I used to go to, they asked for my passport. I didn’t understand, nor did I have my passport on me. They said they needed to copy my passport before I could used the internet. I found it strange, and went to a different one. They said the same thing. When the third place said that I needed to submit my passport, I gave up and went back to my room to get it. Not only would I have to give them a photocopy of my passport, they would also take a picture of me with a webcam. My information would be kept on file so all ov my time using the internet, and what I was doing on there, could be tracked. Of course by western standards this feels like an incredible invasion of privacy, but then again, at least you know when you are being watched. The reason for this seeming paranoia (which is no shock in India) has to do with the 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai. Interestingly, these regulations are only in place in Kolkata, since the attack was at least partly orchestrated there. The sim cards for the cell phones (pay as you go of course, and therefore less traceable) were found to have been purchased in Kolkata. Sometimes getting a sim card when traveling is worth it because it is easy and cheap to get started. After seeing a group of girls filling out paperwork to get one at the same internet café, I decided it definitely would not be worth the hassle.

As much as I was starting to have reservations about staying in Kolkata, I was excited to see my friends, about half the McKernan family, who would be arriving that night. Lizzy, the oldest, is a friend from college who had actually been in Kolkata with me five years earlier. It was a fluke that we were going to be back here at the same. She actually had no idea that I was here, but I was in touch with her little sister, Mel and she was helping me set up the surprise. She had also been to Kolkata two times before, but never when I was there. The youngest one in the family, Joe, would be making his inaugural journey out of North America. Although he had just turned twenty and was a pretty green traveler (inexperienced, not environmentally conscious), he had worked for a long time at a hostel in San Francisco. Through that he had an endless supply of travelers that made him somewhat of a traveler by proxy. I had only met him once before, but I was excited to see him experiencing Kolkata for the first time.

Because of Durga Puja, the buses to the airport were running all night. I had assumed it would be the complete opposite, so I was pleasantly surprised to make it there on the cheap.

I waited an hour before I started seeing people leave the airport from the arriving flight from Frankfurt. I hid so that they would not see me when they exited, but I would be able to see them. Crossing the threshold from the airport into Kolkata can be overwhelming simply because of the aggressive taxi drivers competing with each other for your business. When I saw them come out, I waited for the first of the drivers to rush towards them. I snuck behind Lizzy as she was saying no to the first driver, and grabbed her arm, while saying in my best Indian accent, “Hello! You need taxi?” Without even looking over her shoulder at me, Lizzy smacked my arm and said firmly,”No! Don’t touch me.” It was perfect. Of oourse when she realized it was me, we all gave each other big hugs, and the taxi drivers continued to awkwardly ask us to get in their cars even though we were caught in the moment and completely ignoring them.

Because of the festival, the taxi ride into town took ages. It was a great way for them to make an entrance. The taxi crawled through the traffic jam, and we passed elaborate light displays set up around temporary temples. Lines of people waiting to perform puja at the temple stretched for hundreds of yards, wrapping around corners. The city seemed on fire. There was a mix of quiet reverence, pushy crowds and brash revelry. At one point there was a large SUV beside us. The windows were down and I could see that it was packed with young men. One of them saw me, so I waved. The guys stuck their heads through the windows and cheered loudly for…foreigners? Durga? Alcohol? Whatever? One of them pulled out a bottle of beer and passed it through the window to me. I figured it was worth accepting for the simple fact that I could never do this back home. I took the bottle, took a hearty swig and passed it back through to them. This made everyone, except maybe our taxi driver, very happy. I tried to apologize to the driver, and while he wanted to act like he was upset over my antics, I could see him holding back a smile.

When we got to our neighborhood, the taxi driver seemed disappointed with the agreed upon fare. He was upset because of the traffic and how long it had taken him to get into town. First of all, the fare we had agreed upon was slightly higher than the standard price from the pre-paid taxi stand. Second of all, he is a taxi driver and just like everyone else in town, he should have known that there would be traffic at night during this holiday. He said the 300 rupees we were handing us wasn’t enough. He demanded several hundred more. When we said no, he refused the 300 and told us to leave without paying. He was trying to guilt trip us, a tactic that I would see repeatedly throughout the rest of my time in India. We called his bluff, and started to get out without paying, but he quickly asked for the 300 rupees back. We grabbed our bags, thanked the driver and he sped off without saying a word.

Their second night in town was the final night of Durga Puja and we decided to go to Babu Ghat on the Hooghly River to watch the festivities that take place on the last night of the festival. When we got off the bus at Babu Ghat just after sunset, there was already a crowd gathering.

For weeks or even months before the festival, people are busy building temporary temples to house shrines with statues of the goddess Durga. The statues are traditionally made with clay taken from the Hooghly River (which is a branch of the Ganges). At the end of the festival, the statues are brought back to the river and plunged back into their source.

A statue of the Goddess Durga

Parties, packed into the beds of huge truck, would arrive with their statue of the goddess and disembark. There would be some drumming and dancing, followed by the carrying of Durga into the river.

A truck arrives with a party (and soccer team?) to bring Durga to the river.

Returning Durga to the river.

I had missed this part of the festival the last time I had been in Kolkata, so I was glad that I made it now. It turned out to be less raucous than I had imagined it would be, but it was still a fascinating display of devotion. It turned out that a lot of the foreigners I had already met in India were there as well. I saw a British couple that I had met in Darjeeling, the Israeli girl I had met at the train station in New Jalpaiguri, her Hawaiian friend, and several people staying at my guesthouse.

A veteran traveler from Hawaii.

I also met an interesting man from Georgia (the country) named Nick. He was working here as an architect. It was good to meet someone outside of the travel community because they have different perspectives on the city. He had a lot of thought-provoking things to say about Kolkata. Unfortunately soon after we started talking, we were surrounded by curious teenagers and 20-somethings. After one of them approached us to ask about where we were from, the rest followed. One of them asked Nick for a cigarette, and the rest followed. He doled out half his pack as they continued to ask questions. Eventually the questions ran out, but they continued to stand around and stare as we tried to pick up where we had left off.

I assumed there were celebrations like this at many of the ghats along the Hooghly and I wondered if there were so many foreigners at this one simply because it was the closest one to the tourist district. I hope that I am in Kolkata again for this holiday so I can try to seek out some of the other areas of celebration that are more obscure to foreigners.