What is the first place that comes to mind when I say Durga Puja? What if I tell you that after Kolkata, some of the oldest — and grandest — Durga Pujas in the country can be found in the capital? Delhi has been the harbinger of this quintessentially Bengali festival for over a century and continues to host some of the most iconic Durga Pujas in the country.
Durga Puja is one of Delhi’s oldest and grandest festivals and has been in existence for over a century. The first community Durga Puja is said to have arrived in the city with the arrival of Bengali Brown Sahibs, or the Indian British officials, who ascended to the new capital along with the British. Celebrations only grew with the subsequent migrations from the far east that continue even today.
“When the capital of India shifted from Kolkata to Delhi, there was a large population of Bengalis that moved with them,” says Samrat Banerjee, a restaurateur who comes from one of Delhi’s oldest Bengali families. “Since the Bengali population was scattered around the city, the annual festival became a way of bringing them together and forming a close-knit community. This was how they got to know each other in a new city,” he adds. The practice also resulted in the beginning of some customs peculiar to Delhi. “Because everyone wanted to be a part of the celebration and the community, they took on different roles: men took over the pandal work and women cooked for the goddess — and a large community meal started being offered to everyone who came in.” In Kolkata, designated workers set the pandal up and Brahmins cooked the meal.
The first such Puja was organised in the Timarpur area, close to the old city center, in 1909; it was discontinued for a couple of years before it restarted in 1914, and so on record, it is now the second oldest Puja in Delhi. But even today it continues to draw people from across the country, including locals who have moved to other parts of the capital and come back to their old neighbourhoods for the festival as well as those who no longer live in Delhi but return each year, especially for Puja.
The Kashmere Gate Durga Puja in Old Delhi officially started in 1911 and is one of the grandest and most traditional Durga Pujas in the capital. Kali Bari Durga Puja, which started in the 1920s, followed these and is among the oldest and most revered Puja in the city. Over the years, as the number of Bengalis grew in Delhi, so did the number of localised Pujas. By the 1930s there were multiple community Pujas, all set up with the single aim of preserving the cultural heritage and maintaining the sanctity of the festival. The idols, pandits, and dhaakis (drummers) came from Bengal and the key traditions of worship remain the same and are followed to the last detail — how the puja is done, how the bhog is offered, how the offerings are given, how people dress, the way the idol is brought home and installed, the way it is sent off and immersed.
“We can split Delhi’s Durga Puja into three phases,” says Banerjee, whose great grandfather was instrumental in setting up the city’s first Durga Puja and whose family continues to organise the festival every year. “The first with the movement of the pravasis (Bengali migrants to Delhi), the second with the migration of Bengali Hindus from Bangladesh post the 1971 war to the CR Park area, and the final when people from these areas started moving to the larger Delhi and NCR region in the late 80s and early 90s and took the festival with them to places like Noida and Gurgaon.”
Despite the growing number of Pujas bigger, fancier, and more commercial, the ones in Kali Bari, Kashmere Gate, Timarpur, Greater Kailash 2, and CR Park remain the most sought after; they are also the ones that strictly follow tradition. “It is in the old Pujas,” says Banerjee, “that you still see things happening in the traditional Bengali style, from the ek chala protima (the idol that is sculpted on a single platform) to the ornaments, the rituals of worship and bhog, everything remains sacrosanct and unchanged.” In the Greater Kailash 2 Durgotsob, which is headed by Banerjee and his family, the idol is still brought in the traditional way on Mahalaya, the opening day of Puja, with music and dance, and sent off on the final day with sadness and tears.
Getting to any Durga Puja is hard work, but thanks to the metro, you can at least avoid the traffic. I usually take the metro and then walk to the pandal. If you chose to drive, be prepared to walk anyway, for most roads are shut to traffic and you have to park far away. And the best time to attend the Puja? It depends on what you want to do. If you want to witness the rituals, participate in the Anjali (the traditional offering of flowers to the goddess), offer prayers, and watch the entire festival unfold, I recommend late morning. The crowds are fewer, and you can get some bhog, the quintessential offering that is distributed for lunch. If, however, you are interested in the cultural aspect — music, dance, food — I would say evening, around sunset, is the time, for this is when the glow of the Puja, the beauty of the pandal, and the joy of the people is at its peak. As the sun sets and the locals descend on the streets, impeccably dressed in traditional saris and dhoti-kurtas, with joy in their hearts, a spring in their step, and a song on their lips, it is hard to believe you are not in the heart of Bengal. But then, who said Puja exists only in Bengal?
Most prominent Durga Pujas in Delhi:
Anubhuti Krishna
Anubhuti Krishna is a writer based in New Delhi. Passionate about places, spaces, and food, she finds ways to combine them in her travel. Her work has been featured in major dailies and monthlies across the globe. She hopes someday it will find home in a book.
