Shaktirupena - A Durga Puja Series Part 3

The 108 Diyas During Durga Puja in Ashtami

I remained uncomfortable for the longest time I have known. The body ache, mood swings, and irregular periods are already a part of me now. I type all day on the computer and listen to its music, and compete against myself to churn out 2,500 words anyhow for my monthly expenses. The entire puja was a good one, especially today; it is Ashtami. Before coming to the pandal, I took a solo walk to the lanes of College Street with closed bookstores everywhere. I visited the store from which I bought my saree this time. The topic of our discussion was women and how one woman can ruin another one with her own hands. The most ferocious creatures on earth are just like my mother, who never wants my well-being. My happiness was her envy while I waited for the past twenty-six years to change. The staff in the store are the ones to check on me when I couldn’t leave my room due to a fever. At least I won’t die alone when death embraces me. People are going to be there for me just like the beggars with whom I meet daily. The Hijra di always checks upon me, but this time, she was pointing her fingers towards me to tell me how beautiful I look. We were like this, always. Sometimes, I give her money; sometimes, she gives me a treat of 7 UP Nimbooz. This is how life goes on … I go to my office with a fat lady carrying a bucket and clothes with soaps and shampoos to give her daughter a nice little bath in the public washroom. The little girl with too many rashes because of pimples on her face. That too, because of overeating mangoes, while showing me a hidden box with baby chicks in it. She allowed me to touch them while reminding me of the innocence of childhood. The death shrouded in the lone winters, while the smoke of fumes emerging from the mud oven filled my nose with nostalgia for my ancestral village. 

Again, I return to the present as crowds of people are complaining about the shoes kept near Maa Durga’s platform. I stay silent, as I was one amongst them to do so. Joy Uncle has started to distribute the prasad of flatbread (luchi), sweets, and fried veggies to everyone. The sindoor on my forehead got smeared everywhere on my forehead and my nose. Three Bihari women dressed in Bengali-draped sarees come to Maa Durga by taking out one saree. Then, one by one, they offer a little bit of rice on them, each for one member of their family, along with some suparis and betel leaves on top of it. They hold their hands while the Thakurmoshai chants the mantras once again. 

“Don’t light the diyas here. We have to take care of the safety inside the pandal,” remarked Joy Uncle while attending to people and asking them whether they had the prasad or not. Half of his kurta is drenched in sweat. I stand inside the pandal, asking Thakurmoshai to give me something that I can keep for a lifetime, just like my saree. 

“Then, you can go for the obhro,” said another uncle in a yellow kurta along with the priest. 

“What is this obbhro?” I asked them once again. “I have never heard of this thing before.”

“You will understand once you come to us during the sindoor khela of Dashami.”

I stayed silent for a while, waiting to click a picture with Maa Durga. The thakurmoshai hands me a lotus and a sandesh on my hands while saying, “Maa Durga, protect this Kumari (unmarried woman).”

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