ChinmayC Blog

Yes! We ask why shouldn't the pure Commerce show of the Durga Puja Carnival in Kolkata be canceled in view of the worsening medical crisis? For how long this cruel irony of continuing the worship of the Mother Goddess and continuing to torture/kill the Mothers in human forms going to continue?  Greed, limitless greed of humans! Dear God! This time Goddess Durga came in a cradle which in itself implies ominous times, and further, the tithis from Mahasaptami onward came mixed in such a way that you get three days of worship, technically. Yet, the greedy and selfie-social-media-crazy crowds of 'devotees' were still not satiated, descending on the Puja pandals in uncontrollable hordes for as long as seven days, and to pander to their greed and to have the maximum of business, most of the Puja organizers disregarded the tithi break-up completely and have been celebrating Bijoya Dashami or the Dussehra well into Ekadashi, the eleventh day! They expect the hordes to descend tonigh...

Kolkata is fully back to its old-normal ways after two long painful years as West Bengal's biggest festival Durga Puja heats up. Pandal hopping is in full flow with thousands on a spree of ' Thakur Dekha' (how many Goddess idols have you seen?) almost since the start of Navaratri. Although Durga Puja rituals start only from Mahashasthi which starts today, technically for all here Goddess Durga descends on earth on Mahalaya, the last day of Pitru Paksha, that is the eve for the beginning of the bright lunar phase or Shukla Paksha . There are crowds thronging the major pandals, particularly from afternoon to late night every day, with their mobiles clicking non-stop, falling upon each other for a better view, the rush for the selfies in all available spaces, thronging all the eating joints to their fullest capacity and all the smiles. Celebration is the motif and soul of the festival. Married or unmarried couples of all ages who could be going through lots of strain and stre...

That evening in end-July a Bangla family friend came to our house in Kolkata profusely sweating and drenched in it from head to foot. However he was carrying with him a packet of smoking hot beguni (Brinjal fritters) and Chops (Cutlet fritters). Before he could cool himself enough under the full-speed ceiling fan he commanded us to partake of the items before those cooled off! And yes, we had those gobbled up quick in extraordinary gourmet delight and also supported by hot steaming cups of tea! Well, in our traditional belief that ‘heat neutralizes heat’, particularly when the heat (like May) is oppressively humid (like monsoon)! This dictum is of the utmost importance now, because the supposedly wettest months of the South West Monsoon, June and July, have gone with absolutely no rains in South Bangla and Kolkata city. In fact, the month of July has proved to be the driest July in history in the Eastern and North Eastern regions of the country. And into August now, there’s hardly any...

  Photo: sandesh.com While there has been a global race among nations for the production of the first effective COVID-19 vaccine India perhaps becomes the first nation to politicize the vaccine that is still a long way off. Yes, COVID-19 pandemic may kindly take note. There has been a lot of ‘finance’ involved in it and so the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in a way, had to figure in this. Releasing the BJP Manifesto for the three-phase Bihar assembly elections starting October 28, her party promised to distribute the would-be COVID-19 vaccine absolutely free to all citizens of the state. However, it was not clarified about that segment of the state’s citizens who would not perhaps vote for the party’s alliance as to how to exclude or list them out. Apart from this the Finance Minister further justified her presence by promising around 1.9 million new jobs for Bihar.   The directly political populism of ‘vote for vaccine’ has, obviously, attracted a series of all...

The 11-day Ganesh Festival, celebrated all over Maharashtra and other parts of the country, ushers in the festive season in India, it normally falls during August-September every year as per the calculations of the lunisolar Hindu Calendar. After the immersion on the 14 th day of the bright phase or the waxing moon phase or Shukla Paksha of the lunar month, full moon or Purnima occurs the next day, and the following fortnight of the darkening phase or the waning phase or Krishna Paksha is observed as Pitru Paksha when people pay homage to their ancestors and perform the main shradh or funeral rituals on the culminating day of the new moon or Amavasya, that is Mahalaya . Next day, the brightening phase of the moon starts again which is called Devi Paksha and during this divine fortnight of the Goddess awakening, Navaratri and Durga Puja are celebrated. Hymns of Goddess Durga resonate the air on the auspicious day of Mahalaya , and people of India, energized by the sweet tinge of ...

Kumartuli or Kumortuli is located in the northern part of the city of Kolkata. The locality is a traditional habitat of the potters for nearly three hundred years. The potters or the artisans or the artists settled here during the restructuring of the Kolkata colonial region by the British East India Company. Earning a livelihood by making earthen pots and utensils first they gradually shifted to the making of the idols of Gods and Goddesses for various festivals round the year.  With increasing demand and quality of their creations over time the artisans became famous and Kumartuli came to be known as the hub of idol makers supplying thousands of idols, particularly of Goddess Durga, to whole of the state of West Bengal and to NRIs of around 90 countries across the globe. At least three months before Durga Puja, the biggest festival of West Bengal and one of the biggest across Eastern India, more than five hundred workshops come alive with hyper activity day and night. First, the ...

Even C-grade Bollywood (Hindi film industry based in Mumbai or earlier Bombay) movies show a kind of stark realism in terms of depraved, regressive and malignantly anti-woman villains. If you have been following Bollywood movies for at least the last three decades you must have noticed villains who when confronted with rapes committed (on screen) by their son/sons or male relatives normally say with pride, “He is a boy only…they commit mistakes man, please understand. In my prime time I too had done a lot of merrymaking. I’ll even burn this city to save my son!” These villains are dirty rich mostly being smugglers or business tycoons or plain dons and they carry the concerned ‘screen’ police force in their pockets. They do get punished in the end by the heroes, but after all the gory regressive oppressive chauvinistic feudalistic details shown gloriously by the filmmakers who definitely seem to pander to a sizeable male section of our society. However, you can hardly deny the ‘realism...