The following article was published in October 2018 in DURGA: DOSHODISHI. This is an in-house magazine published by KUNDU BARI in Kolkata, India and not for sale. The Durga Puja at my cousin’s house (Kundu Bari) celebrated their 10th anniversary in 2018.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the article. Is there a time of the year when you miss your loved ones the most? Please feel free to comment…

It is that time of the year…

It’s that time of the year again. When the heat of summer is just about fading away and the chill of winter has not quite strengthened its grasp. Autumn or fall, as we commonly call it here in the US, is just around the corner. The colors of the leaves are changing to hues of yellow, orange and red. I can hear the crunch of fallen dried leaves under my feet as I walk our dog around the cul-de-sac. My mind wanders to that time of the year we would look forward to back home. Do I hear the sound of a conch shell, the beatings of the dhaak and the uloo of sari-clad women all in unison? Durga Pujo!!! I shake myself back to reality. Of course, I can hear none of those. The only sounds are of the ambulance going by and cars rushing to work at top speed. I hurriedly walk back home.

All thoughts of celebrations vanish as I see loads of dishes to wash, piles of laundry to fold and an unwilling child to send off to school. As I am doing the dishes, the mind wanders again. I am now shrouded by my earliest memories of Durga pujo. Of frenzied rehearsals for plays, jatra and dance dramas starting at least six months prior to the actual festival and getting more intense as we approach the date of. Whole families involved in different cultural presentations. Innumerable nights spent practicing and perfecting dialogues; songs or dance moves as the case may be. But most importantly practice sessions followed with potluck dinners and adda (general small talk, fun, laughter and gossip). These were times of bonding, of laughing at silly jokes, of sharing each other’s thoughts without hesitation, of friendship, love and affection.

Small talk and fun take a backseat as I run to put a load in the laundry, pack the little boys lunch and wave him goodbye. It’s time for the bills. Out comes the laptop. But instead of opening up the bank site, my fingers involuntarily type “durga” and I start perusing the beautiful pandals and protimas back home. The images take me back to a more carefree time when pujo meant “no rules”. You eat what you want, when you want and hang out with friends. I get to be with my friends till the wee hours of the morning roaming the serpentine roads of the pandal laden city eating rolls and phuchka at 3 am in the morning. My thoughts are cut short as my eyes catch a glimse of the time. No time for daydreams. I finish the bills and drive out to the grocery store.

From here on, I’m on the run. Groceries, cooking, teaching a class, driving the kiddo to his after school classes and finally dinner. My days are filled with countless chores; life is filled with trials and tribulations, interspersed with phone calls and texts from the husband who is traveling for work.

Excitement starts seeping in as I think of the approaching of the durga puja. I can attend pujo here in the US. But here it is just a two-day weekend affair. We are so busy making our careers; the five-day affair is reduced to a two-day weekend one. The dhak is substituted with drums, they beat with zeal but the sound is not the same. There is a huge crowd at the high school where the festivities are held, but the feelings are not the same. Where is that bonding? The affection? That warmth?

As I rest my aching back on bed in the night I think of Ma durga, an symbol of the multitasking woman with her ten hands, she is wife, warrior, mother…Here I am driver, cleaner, teacher, accountant, cook, wife, mother and more. So many of us represent the modern day Ma Durga. But Ma gets to visit her childhood home once every year. I realize that I’ve gotten so busy with responsibilities that fifteen years have gone by and I haven’t been home for pujo even once during that time!! I miss the dhaker bajna, dhunuchi naach, anjali, yummy bhog and late night adda. But most of all I miss being close to the people I love and who are instrumental in making me what I am today.

It is “that time of the year” when I miss my loved ones the most…