Durga Puja at 41, Deblane, 2023

(3) Orange (Knowledge)

Everybody Gets A Wake-Up Call (From Ma Durga) Once In A While :

3.30 P.M.- As I pick up the large, flat, round-shaped, wooden plate containing all the clay lampstands and take it back to Thakurghar, I see the image of Goddess Durga again. I put the plate down, move to the corner, and bend down to touch Her feet with the prayer:

Let me, Ma, never ever be vain, boastful, power-crazy, and hurtful to others. Give me 'bidya' (knowledge), 

'buddhi' (intelligence), and 'gyan' (wisdom).....

It is 1.36 in the afternoon. I am just done with the cleaning of the thakurghar. People who have been doing these for donkey's years will do it more thoroughly when they come to 41 for The Pujas.

Ma Durga is helping me slowly open my eyes. I have always been the clumsiest, most pampered, and most ignorant of all my siblings. My attitude has always been - When there are so many active, intelligent siblings, why should I bother?

But yes, I have started believing of late that I am another of those chosen ones. Okay, reader, if you still are not satisfied with all my pleas, explanations, and justifications, let me tell you what happened an hour or two ago.

I was lying in bed when I heard Akanksha, who hardly stays at home due to some Bhutan-returned eye shore, wondering aloud:

"Oh! When is the thakurghar going to be cleaned?"

The question shot through me like a shot of morphine. Most of my siblings are gone now. Bardi, Mejdi, Mejda, Sejda, Chhotonda, Khokonda - all are gone. Of the surviving offsprings of late J.C. Bhattacharyya, Barda can't come up anymore from Australia. My eldest Sis-in-law in all earnest, showed me a letter regarding his deteriorating health conditions during their last visit to Kolkata.

At 58+, I am the youngest of the surviving offspring of Baba. I am lucky to be lazing my days away at 41, while the others stay as far as Behala, Garia, and Paikpara. My Sis who is taking the lead role in this year's Puja, can't come before tomorrow. She joined BBIT, Budge Budge, only two months back. So, who can do all this minor work like cleaning the thakurghar and fetching gangajal? As I took out the bunch of keys from the plastic container, I heard Akanksha commenting again:

'Baba, don't go. Not you of all people in the world! You can't do it!"

My daughter really thinks very highly of me! 

No sooner did the thought come to my head than I was off to the thakurghar in a flash. I had the gut feeling that it could not be in a very pathetic condition anymore. I haven't forgotten those days of poverty and squalor just before The Pujas. The thakurghar in those days, would be messy beyond your wildest beliefs with all kinds of things littered around. Ma had seen poverty from the extreme quarters therefore, she couldn't even throw away an apparently insignificant thing like the safety pin.

I didn't even hesitate to open the door. I am saying this because I have seen 41 considering someone like me, who spent 29 years of his life in a foreign land (Bhutan is a foreign country after all!) as a mlechchho (the untouchable). On opening the door, my hunch proved right. Cleaning the room was not going to be a big ask. 

I pranamed the clay image of the goddess left behind by the Production Unit of the big-budgeted Bengali film, GAURI. For the next hour or so, I applied myself wholeheartedly to cleaning the thakurghar thoroughly. Akanksha turned up once, "Need any help, Baba?"

I screamed her away. A little later when I heard her mother talking over the phone, she (Akku) was passing on some secrets that stay locked up in the hearts of mother-daughter forever. Teasing her with the tag of being the Ma's chamcha (sycophant), I reapplied myself to the task at hand. At least once in my life, I want some people to think that Bappa is not completely under the thumb of his wife. You know, friend, we live in a strange world where we see the world exactly the way we are. If a bro goes away somewhere with his wife, just before the Lakshmi Puja at home, the general assumption is it is all due to the bad influence of his wife! We try to give others the impression that we are one hundred percent self-made. We do what we do at our own whims and fancies. That there is no one, no one at all, to control us! But the rest of the world consists of all henpecked men!

Anyway, my wife didn't pester my daughter to hand over the phone to me and I was happy knowing that I was not cleaning the thakurghar at her (my wife's) bidding.

I was halfway through when my Sis-in-law came down:

"Bappa, I can help you!"

"Don't you worry, Baudi. I can manage it on my own," I replied.

"A great event like the Durga Puja cannot be performed by one," she was really in a mood to help.

"Do you consider me to be such an idiot, Baudi? Only an idiot will be thinking along those lines. But if you insist, I will either let you do it alone or close the door."

My Sis-in-law didn't pester me anymore after that.

"Please let me know if you need a hand," she cut short the conversation and headed for her midday bath.

"I certainly will, Baudi. After all, you are my Sis-in-law, aren't you?" I punched in.

Once I was done with the cleaning, meaning sweeping, mopping, and arranging things to the best of my abilities, I asked Akanshka to come take a look. I couldn't help teasing her again, with:

"You consider your Baba to be the laziest man around, that Baba can't do a thing without Ma. You still have to know your Baba better, my dear.."

I don't know why but for once, this very chatty, blabbery daughter of mine kept quiet.

Now, sitting on the marble rock at the entrance of 41, I am keeping an eye on the pradips,(clay lampstands) used for lighting purposes with the help of oil and cotton. There are two reasons why I have to keep an eye on them -

Number 1, the lamps got wet somehow. So, I have kept them out in the sun for drying up.

Number 2 is a greater worry The one thousand three hundred and fifty-eight cats at 41 ( No, I haven't given a head-to-head count really! I have always been fond of this figure of speech called Hyperbole), dear reader. As the number of people in 41 keeps dwindling, the number of what I consider to be The Most Ungrateful of Creatures on earth keeps on multiplying by the dozen every month!

Of late, I, a god-fearing person, who learnt a lot about Compassion for other sentient beings during my long stay in Bhutan ( a scene of Nado Sir, my colleague, picking up an injured fly during the Morning Assembly and keeping away in a safe place, comes to mind. God bless his kind.) have started throwing some false kicks in the direction of the greatest menace to 41 at present.

As I missed landing a vicious kick on the cat with the bulging tummy at the advent of the majestic breeding season of 'sharat', (autumn, not that they mind the other seasons, come September, December, or July!)

I heard myself muttering:

"Let me see if Ma Durga punishes me for doing such a sinful act."

But jokes apart, cleaning the altar room didn't turn out to be either cumbersome or laborious. I consider myself one of the chosen ones, you know?

To be concluded….