Sometimes we mistakenly assume that traditions are static. In reality, they survive because of their fluid and dynamic nature, coursing ahead of our consciousness.
This has become very apparent to me as a Durga Puja organiser for my housing society over the last nine years. Though primarily seen as an acknowledgment of women empowerment, Puja rituals are deeply rooted in patriarchy. But if our society’s Puja is an indication, then it is the ordinary women who have upturned them – not because they are professedly liberal or had a light-bulb moment, but because it came naturally to them.
It all began in 2015, when I lost my husband and was dealing with the trauma of the numbing suddenness of death. A group of women residents came to me and through many sessions of healing conversations, co-opted me into their Puja committee, saying they needed an extra hand. Convention meant abstention from Puja in a year of mourning. Besides, I was hardly in the right mindset for a celebration.
But the women, very generously, found a reasonable logic to divert my mind and helped me socialise again. Collectively, they appealed to my sense of volunteerism, “The children need help with their performances, we need help with the décor, the bhog kitchen…” They even bought a new sari and had me open the dhunuchi dance with them. I remember Purnima Aunty, 75, who had never performed on stage, reciting a poem thunderously with me, just to restore my self-confidence and nudge me to a life that had to be lived regardless. She never performed after that.
In 2015, a neighbourhood priest, a bank employee who had no scholarly ambitions, told me that all women were connected to the sacred feminine and immediately assigned me the responsibility of assembling the deity’s main bhog platter.
Cut to 2022. This was the first time the same women roped me into playing the sindoor khela (the ritual of smearing vermillion on each other’s foreheads) before the immersion of the goddess on Vijay Dashami. Truth be told, for all my liberalism and independent spirit, I had not been able to overcome my self-consciousness regarding this ritual. I had been tentative, for fear of being judged wrongly. I would make myself scarce during this joyful ceremony.
But last year, the same group of women decided that enough was enough and put that red dot on my forehead. One of them, a meditation counsellor, made it seem effortless. “You are just concentrating your cosmic energy with that dot, so focus on it,” she said. Needless to say, this year, I had no issue with vermillion dribbling down to my cheeks like Holi colours. Sometimes you need others to power your self-belief.
The Navami or the ninth day Puja has a havan ritual, traditionally performed by male members of the Puja committee. Considering that the women did all the work for the Puja but never conducted a ceremony, the senior-most founder changed the rule and asked them to do the havan instead. An octogenarian and a former professor, he told the priest, “The scriptures talk about souls, not gender.”
Meanwhile, unknown to us, Kunti, the help we hire every year to wash our bhog utensils, filmed us, made a reel with music and posted it on Instagram.
Turns out she has 10,000 followers — all from Malda district in Bengal, where she comes from. She became our kathakar (storyteller) of change and sent a message to a dot that was her village.
Though primarily seen as an acknowledgment of women empowerment, Puja rituals are deeply rooted in patriarchy
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05.11.2023
Sometimes we mistakenly assume that traditions are static. In reality, they survive because of their fluid and dynamic nature, coursing ahead of our consciousness.
This has become very apparent to me as a Durga Puja organiser for my housing society over the last nine years. Though primarily seen as an acknowledgment of women empowerment, Puja rituals are deeply rooted in patriarchy. But if our society’s Puja is an indication, then it is the ordinary women who have upturned them – not because they are professedly liberal or had a light-bulb moment, but because it came naturally to them.
It all began in 2015, when I lost my husband and was dealing with the trauma of the numbing suddenness of death. A group of women residents came to me and through many sessions of healing conversations, co-opted me into their Puja committee, saying they........
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