September 24th 2009, was "OK... this is just gonna be another of those pathetic days ... filled with lectures and
tutorials and tests and assignments and quizzes and ... all such things that exist to make your life miserable. I
gotta wake up now,and brush my teeth ... ". This was followed by a short bout of nostalgia ... the days in Calcutta, when my mom had had to put up a Titanic struggle to wake me up. I quickly got rid of them, because they generally made you sadder the more you allowed them to invade your mind.
I looked to my right ... my roomie was snoring lightly, completely unaware of the fact that a humungous life form
had actually waken up from a state of deep slumber and was looking straight at him. I reached for my cell phone ... my only companion in times such as these, and was quite astonished to find an unread message in it. "OK, so who would care to message me this early ???" Closer investigation revealed that it was from my father, wishing me a happy Durga Puja, and saying that my folks back at home were missing me a lot.
And with that, something hit my mind like a bolt of lightning and my head started to reel. It was like a wilderness of assorted feelings that surged through my body making me numb. Shocked, stunned and totally flabergasted.
"Holy crap", I nearly whispered aloud ... "Today is MahaShashthi? the first day of Durga Puja?" I just couldn't
believe it! How could such a day actually be as mundane as this? My mind raced back to the previous year, and the
ones before ... to the days when Mahashashthi meant an eager me clambering out of bed to be kissed and hugged by my parents ... to the smell of new clothes, and the sound of the dhaks in the nearby pandals ... to the enchanting
atmosphere of the grand season of Durga Puja, that unites all us Bengalis across the planet.
And here??? It just seemed so very terrible ... stuck up in a confounded desert state with people who think that
Durga Puja is just another holiday to waste your time and fool about ... who possibly even didn't know how many
hands Goddess Durga had! Trying my best to keep all such feelings out of my mind, I reached for my tooth brush and
headed for the toilet. The next half hour or so, was possibly the worst half hour that I have spent in BITS till
now. When I returned to my room, my roomie had woken up, and was looking at me bleary eyed. After a short
conversation wherein I didnt at all mention the word Durga Puja, I opened my almirah and glanced through the
clothes. Another bolt of ligtning shot through me, as I remembered the previous years of Durga Puja when I used to
wear new clothes everyday. My phone started ringing, and I took the call. It was from my mum, who wished me on this auspicious day, and asked me to stay happy and celebrate with all my friends here. I vented my feelings out to her, and I would be lying if I said that I wasn't on the brink of tears by then. She consoled me and told me not to give in to such thoughts and reminded me of the new colthes she had left for me in the suitcase. I glanced up at the loft of my room. "Awesome! There are actually new clothes in that thing??? OK ... something to smile about" After hanging up, I brought down the suitcase and opened it. Out spilled a flurry of clothes ... kurtas, T shirts, shirts, jeans ... I couldn't help smiling. I quickly took out the black and white kurta and studied it. "Hey ... this is cool!!!" I took out a pair of new blue jeans and ... well it matched perfectly with the kurta!!! I couldn't help loving my very thoughtful parents all the more!!!
In this state of jubiliation I put these on, and studied myself. Yes ... I could now actually feel a fraction of the Durga Puja atmosphere around me ...I had a Thermodynamics lecture at 9 o'clock and then a Biology tutorial at 10. So I hastily put on my new clothes and got onto my cycle and reached the lecture theatre. And man!!! Was I the center of attention on the roads ... people actually craned their necks to take a look at me!!! In the lecture, it didnt take long to find all the bengali first yearites, and we all sat piled in one corner. They, it seemed were feeling much the same as me too, and even they had adorned themselves with new clothes that they had brought. In the evening, we went to the Durga Puja celebration that the Bengali Association arrange here every year ... I mean the profs and the students. We had to help out with the carrying of the idols to the pandal, and some minor tweaks to the decoration. The pandal was pretty small by a proper Calcuttan standards, but at that instant it felt like a Godsend blessing. And all of a sudden, I started loving it.
The work was fun, the people were fun, the profs suddenly seemed so very nice and friendly (not that they aren't,
but it seemed a lot more then!). And the entire night, we students spent in that pandal, chatting, playing random
stuff, singing... The next day, Mahasaptami, was even more eventful. We were asked to help out with the packaging of the prasadam, and boy! Was it fun!!! It was aorund 6 or 7 of us first yearites who sat huddled around a huge mass of assorted edibles, packing them into neat .... er ... packets, and throwing random stuff into our mouths. The evening was spent rehearsing for the cultural programme that was to be held the day after the next. Mahaashthami, followed and this day turned out to be realy special for me, because I danced for the first time in my life ... the famous Dhunuchi naach, wherein you dance ... or for that matter ... random steps while balancing and rotating earthenware filled with buring embers. It was soooooo coooool people!!!And the night was even better because we were invited to a dandiya event organised by the Gujarathi Association.
And we had fun!!! Awesome fun!!!
The next day, Mahanabami was the day of the cultural programme, and man! was I amazed at the audience turnout!!! When ours, I mean the students' programme began, there was a gargantuan holllering and shouting and cheering from
our fellow BITSians. We did some songs of Rabindranath Tagore (I was in two of these songs), and our seniors danced to some adhunik (modern) bangla songs. After that was a bangla rock performance (well ... nearly rock) which included me on the keyboard and vocals, and two others, one on the guitar. I'll upload pics on facebook by tomorrow guys, so if you can catch up on those then. After an exhiltrating performance, we went to treat oursleves, and after a very satisfactory dinner, went back to the puja grounds to spend the rext of the night, dancing, enjoying and chatting. What amazed us even more was the suddenly accquired enthusiasm of the profs, who seemed to had gone crazy. In fact when we came back to our rooms at 3 o'clock in the night, they stayed on ... dancing and dancing into the wee hours of the morning.
The next day was the last day, Dashami, and there was a sudden atmosphere of gloom that seemed to suck all happiness out of our lives. The visharjan (immersion) procession began at 4 o clock in the afternoon, and we boarded two tractors, and slowly headed out of the campus with the idols. It was actually pretty fun, and we all shouted "Jai Durga Mata ki Jai!!!" and "Asche Bochhor Aabar Hobe!!!" throughout the journey. By 6 o clock in the evening we were back in the campus, and the wonderful five days suddenly seemed so distant and unreachable, like a rainbow in the sky.
But well things do end, and they come back again ... and you gotta live with it... and stuff that seemed non existant for a period of time, suddenly come back to haunt you ... like say, a 60 mark Thermodynamics Test I had on Wednesday ... which I screwed up pretty badly ... but which, I must agree was a rather nominal price for such an experience of a lifetime!!!
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