Joyous Two-Day Durga Puja Celebration by the Edmonton Bengalees
Nivedita Bardhan

The Edmonton Bengali Association (Canada) has celebrated its 21st year with another successful two-day Durga Puja. The two-day event was well attended, and gave the community an opportunity to celebrate the occasion and showcase the talents of many Edmonton Bengalees. Our Pratima is from Kumartuli, Kolkata but was placed with a typical "kharer ghar" façade for the first time this year. Many of the celebrants commented that the façade gave a very authentic look of rural Bengal.

The Puja was conducted by Purohit Sri Bimal Bhattacharjee with dedicated helpers like Ratna Das and Swati Mitra. Throughout the two day event there were enough volunteers to play the "dhak" to create the puja environment. Manas Shome and Syamal Raha showed their talent and creativity with "Dhunuchi Dance" after Arati.

Even though there was snow outside, people indoors nostalgically went back to their days of Durga Puja back in kolkata, Patna, Dhaka or Delhi, wherever it may be.

The highlight of Saturday night was the staging of "Mahisasur-Mardini" directed by Dr. Samar Maiti. The performers told the story of Goddess Durga through a combination of narration, Chandipath, songs and dances, and a high quality computerized slide show. The voice and memories from the Birendrakrishna Bhadra's Akashbani days in the 1960's and 70's were strongly evoked.

The community's many kitchen volunteers proved their culinary skills by cooking four meals for almost 300 people from scratch. Saturday dinner was the Bengali favorite of Ilish maach and green jackfruit (kanthaler ichor) curry. Both Saturday and Sunday lunches comprised of khichuri, sabji, beguni etc., and the community enjoyed a superb mutton-aloo-fulcopy dinner on Sunday. The sweets included narkel naru, nalen gur er sandesh, doi and rosho-malai. Through individual contributions, the community members contributed to the needy by donating two large boxfuls of canned food items for the food-bank and some items for the Salvation Army.

One success of this year's event was the huge contribution of the young members of the community. Their many hours of volunteer work, whether it was through dance, decorations, or setting up the hall, were much appreciated by all. Many girls and boys also wrote articles and poems that were published in the Pujo Magazine, a publication that has become part of the annual tradition in the Edmonton, Alberta Bengali community.

Quite a few of the participants come from non-Bengali heritage including Orissa and Bihar, as well as many non-Indian friends and family. Other participants ranged from those born in Edmonton to families new to the country. Mousumi Bhoumik, a newcomer to Canada, summed up the feeling of the festivities by describing the "Pujo Pujo gandha", and the way that Durga Puja was nostalgic of Kolkata and has made her feel so at home in Edmonton.