A handful of thoughts

When I was a little child, tall enough to hold my father’s forefinger, I had asked one Bijoya Dashami, “Why doesn’t Durga Puja last all year long?”

With a child holding on to his finger and a Devi Durga flanked by her four children staring at him from her podium he had said, “because then, Durga Puja would cease to be as special as it is.”

It was then that I had understood, I will have to face this ugly piece of reality every autumn. That Durga Puja would begin one shashthi and then suddenly end after four days, on Bijoya dashami. Then, I did not know what the ritual meant, what the immersion of the idol in the Ganges suggested. For me, it was only the end of four days of fun, and of the liberty to skip routines.

Later, as I grew up, Bijoya Dashami began to mean several things like dancing to the rhythm of dhak and ogling at the guy who resides a few block away fearlessly. Much later, I grasped the meaning of Bijoya Dashami, as it was meant in the scriptures.

The ceremony of immersing the idol is known as bisarjan. Going by the word meaning, this means - creating specially. The idol in which the priest had summoned life, on the holy day of shashthi, is immersed to create something anew. The soul of Devi Durga which had resided into the clay idol for four days departs, to enter our very being. The goddess that had stared at us from the pandals, now finds place in the heart of the devotees who, the blessings of the goddess in heart, prepare to wait for another year for Durga to return, with the promise of prosperity and peace for those to whom her presence matters and also for those who profess not to believe in her existence.