Coincidentally, an NRI gentleman I know wrote about similar things just yesterday – how pujos in US don’t have the feeling of ‘native’ ones. I’ve been a probashi bangali all my life in and around Delhi, so perhaps can’t relate to the Kolkata fervour (left on a Shashti just once). But Suhel, why go all the way to CR Park? Gurgaon has good pujos, among them DLF-1, Palam Vihar & Sushant Lok.

Yes, puja committees do sadly keep breaking up all the time, Rajeev. I’m part of one which broke up five years back. But as regards dependance on corporate sponsorship, that is not true for every pujo. We make do with corporate/small business sponsorship for components like gate, (sometimes) protima and cultural enclosure, but not for the pujo as a whole. But my cousin in Patna (involved in pujo there) tells me that it IS catching on there.

The last para does (regreattably?) force me to accept that I’m getting old – you’re right Sin.

me too having awesome memories of Navratri season

http://beingdesh.blogspot.com/2009/09/times-of-navratri-edition-1.html

i guess with durga and her five chhanaponas and the osur (is the shib thakur potrait at the backdrop included)….pujo brings with itself many others…lost kishore kumars…RDBs…(i meant sachin katta’s son)…never had anyone imagined that the managing director of some shipping corporation can sing “mere bhigi bhigi si”…with such flair…(thank god they didn’t cause he’s imaginably a horrible singer)….

for the long lost poetic skills…or the ruby roy humming…pujo is a great revival….for the less fortunate married lots…its time to make sure your handycam battery does not run out when your better half is enjoying the oh so lovely sindurkhela….

these five days are fun…(i live in singapore….so we have a five day time on pujo..just a two and a a half hours sprinted ahead slot)….no cooking at home…the wonder of getting to play dhak with kettle drum sticks…(they get almost everything but the dhak konchi sticks)….for a change this country is safe and heavily P.C.Chandrad women can be seen getting off at carparks even at mid-night, fearlessly…

RDB stays….kishore always does….they should be placed as photographs along with shib thakur in the backdrop….and as we wrap the 4 feet idols and shove them into wooden caskets smelling heavily of insect repellents….we smile at the divinity …her three eyes and ten hands….”abar eso maa”

inspiring post…as i said…

“(Lord Rama may have done “akaal bodhon” but the NRIs go one step further—”weekend bodhon”)” and “(”Punjabi” we Bangalis call it)” …reveals that u possess gr8 sense of humor!

Priceless. Simply priceless.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbymyb70c6Y

Exhibit #2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgZ4_FujZFg&feature=related