Pujo pujo bhaab (the festive feeling)

Today is Shoptomi. And I am writing this sitting in my dull office, looking at other equally dull offices in imposing high rises in Bombay's Bandra Kurla Complex. Once upon a time, even the very thought of working during pujos (some would argue, working during any day of  the year, for that matter) seemed unthinkable. But it's a reality today, and I realise I don't care that much about Pujos anymore. It wasn't always like this.

Growing up in Kolkata, pujo didn't begin with Mahalaya, for many of us. Pujo began the day the  "Pujobarshiki" (annual pujo edition) of Anandamela, a popular children's magazine, came home. Pujobarshiki meant that we could smell the month long pujo holiday and hear it knocking on our doors. It had novels by Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay, Sunil Ganguly, Samaresh Majumder, Dulendra Bhowmick and many others; articles on science by Pathik Guha and many other equally delightful writings. In the pre internet era, if Satyajit Ray, through his Feluda and Shonku books, taught us how the world outside looked like, Anandamela completed the picture. Shirshendu's novels used to be my favourite; they still are. His novels had friendly ghosts, some of whom even got emotional frequently. They also had very stingy rich men, so stingy that they were hilariously funny.

Soon after Anandamela was devoured and discussed at length with friends, began the pujo holidays, starting on the day of Mahalaya. I have generally been lazy all my life, so a quintessential part of the Bengali identity, waking up at a godforsaken hour during Mahalaya to listen to Birendro krishno Bhodro chant "Mahishashurmordini" never quite happened for me. Of course, I now claim I skipped Mr. Bhadro because I have been an atheist since my school days.

Then would come the five big days of Pujo- Shosti, Shoptomi, Oshtomi, Nobomi and Doshomi. Phone calls would be made to friends, plans made instantly. We would remember each other's landline phone numbers by heart. Six digits at first, with advancement in telecommunication technologies marked by addition to digits, till they became eight in all and thankfully stopped. Around shosti, I would usually disappear from Saltlake, where I grew up, only to return around nobomi or doshomi. I hated Saltlake for its dullness during pujos-it used to be almost like what Bandra Kurla Complex is today.

The itinerary of the five big days used to change every year, but eventually settled, after a few years, at Maddox Square, one of the biggest pujos in South Kolkata. Maddox is not just any other pujo. The ground was huge, and at least ten to twenty thousand people could be seen on the lawns at any point of time. It was the tinder of our childhood, the place where you looked longingly at women looking gorgeous in their saris and sleeveless blouses, but rarely got a look back. We would be dressed in our best, but even in our best, we looked like "benign baboons" (a teacher in my school once called me that). And if by mistake, a girl did approach any of us, the rest of the group would make such fun that ignoring her seemed a better idea than being trolled.

During one pujo, we achieved the dubious record of being in Maddox for four days straight without even looking at the idol once. The clandestine "Lokar maath" (Loka's grounds) was close by; the alleys there offered maud, mohila and mangsho (alcohol, women and meat, respectively). We never dared to try out the "mohila", but the "maud" would often be bought, mixed with coca-cola and consumed sitting in Maddox. And we would feel like revolutionaries who have finally broken the unfair and suffocating rules of society.

The feel of pujo changed over the years. From the 7th to maybe the 10th standard, it would be adda, staying over at friend's houses. From the 11th standard, women and alcohol started playing an important role in shaping our pujos. But Maddox remained a constant all through, till the end of my undergraduate college.

When we all went back to Maddox a few years ago, it seemed unfamiliar. We hated the crowds, found the kids pretentious, and wanted to kill the selfie-takers. And a friend told me that there's a 360 degree camera perched right atop Durga, delivering live feed to Maddox's Facebook page- it's called Maddox 360. The other favourite haunts like Ballygunge Sarbojonin also seemed very alien.

I realized that Pujo probably hasn't changed that much; the dazzling lights and ambitious pandals are still great to look at, the energy in the streets is still infectious. But somewhere, we outgrew the pujo of our childhood. The endless traffic jams and the crowds seemed unbearable now. We preferred house parties in the once-hated Saltlake, for it was quieter. Some of us started making vacation plans during the five big days, just to avoid being in Kolkata.

I still end up going to Kolkata almost every pujo. I avoid Maddox like the plague, visit my neighbourhood pujo and attend a bunch of house parties and get drunk. I take an Uber to South Kolkata now, get dropped off at one of the innumerable road blocks, and walk a mile to reach friends' houses and check out the lighting on the streets and think about the pujo of our teens and twenties. I still buy the Anandamela from this enterprising Gujarati grocer in Chembur. Shirshendu still writes.

I have spent two pujos before this in Bombay, and I found the glamorous pujos in Bombay to be unbearably ostentatious and pretentious. Bengalis who usually try to hide their identity, to mingle with the broader idea of being "Indian" the rest of the year, suddenly become the quintessential bhodrolok and bhodromohila, and speak in a weird dialect that's part Bangla, part English, with some stylish Hindi thrown in for good measure.

This year, I have decided to give Bombay pujo another shot. There's no dhaak (drum) to be heard, people are busy at their desks like it's any other day. And for the past hour, I have been writing this, with no intention of working the rest of the day. There are plans to check out the Bandra and Khar pujos near my home today evening. And I am planning to visit Chembur, soon after I finish writing this, to buy this year's Anandamela Pujobarshiki.

Like a lump in my consciousness, pujo still remains.