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I was born and raised in a modest, double-storeyed house in West Delhi, but some of my earliest Durga Pujo memories begin long before the city woke up.
Every Mahalaya, at around four in the morning, my Dadu would turn on his old Murphy transistor radio and let Birendra Krishna Bhadra’s Mahishasura Mardini fill the quiet of the house. Wrapped in our blankets, we would lie half asleep, half awake, listening to the familiar chants and the rise and fall of his voice. I don’t remember sitting up to listen or understanding much of what was being said. I remember the hour, the warmth of the blanket, and the sound of Mahalaya drifting into the edges of sleep.
“Ya devi sarvabhuteshu shaktirupena samsthita, namastasyai, namastasyai, namastasyai namo namaha.“
For my family, this was how Durga Pujo found its way into our home. We were Bengalis living far from the place our roots led back to, and that annual broadcast connected us to a tradition that stretched beyond our surroundings. Even without being in Kolkata, we could hear the season beginning. The city was still some distance away, but through that old radio, it felt a little closer.
I didn’t have the words for any of this as a child. I only knew that Mahalaya meant Pujo was coming, and that the sound of Mahishasura Mardini belonged to those early mornings as surely as the blankets we pulled over ourselves against the chill.
Decades later, I find myself in Kolkata on Dashami morning, listening to the fading beat of neighbourhood dhaks. I have come a long way from that little girl under the blanket, and my relationship with Pujo has changed along the way. Sitting here with a cup of tea going cold, I am thinking about everything that has changed, and the few things that have stayed.
Mahavir Enclave Kali Bari Durga Pujo
Back in West Delhi, Pujo meant the Mahavir Enclave Kali Bari, and it meant work. Every kid in the locality had a job, and we did it all together, alongside the para aunties, didis and kakus. We cut fruit for the morning prasad while the sky was still grey. We carried buckets of khichuri and labda through the crowd at bhog time. Before the evening festivities began, we walked the elders to their chairs, one arm each, very slowly, very seriously.
The bhog changed from day to day, but the lunch I still taste is khichuri, labda, beguni and tomato chutney. I pinned a flimsy, laminated “Volunteer” badge on my kurti and directed aunties and uncles through the barricades like I was running a small country.
We sang at the top of our lungs with the local orchestra and huddled around sound systems. There was one cute Bengali boy in our group who always seemed to linger near the same stall, and I noticed. In the evenings we ate ghugni, greasy mutton rolls wrapped in thin paper, and Kolkata biryani until our stomachs gave up. I fell into bed around 1 AM, tired down to my bones and happy, knowing I would repeat every second of it the next morning.
The City I Thought Would Feel Like Home
When I moved to Kolkata in 2013, everything was supposed to feel more authentic. This was the mothership, the place my family’s roots led back to. I had imagined that Durga Pujo here would bring me closer to something that had always been part of my identity.
It felt entirely different. I had arrived as an adult, away from the friends and corners of my Delhi neighbourhood, and I didn’t know many people in Kolkata. If I’m honest, I never made the effort to build those instinctive connections in a new city.
So I stood on the pavement outside the pandals like every tourist who flies in to “experience Durga Pujo.” Nobody asked me to cut a single fruit. Nobody handed me a bucket of khichuri or needed me to find a chair for an elder. Around me, neighbourhoods ran their own festival with a kind of ease I recognised from Delhi and could no longer reach. I was in the queue, trapped between thousands of strangers and the humidity, trying to catch a glimpse of Maa Durga before a volunteer waved us along. In Delhi, I had been the volunteer.
Then, in 2023, I moved to Thailand. A border settled between me and the festival, and Pujo stopped being something I could step out of the house to find. It became something I carry with me.
As the Dhakis quiet down
I am still at the window. The dhaks down the lane have slowed to a tired thump, the sound of a party where only the host is awake.
Nobody has fed me this Pujo. Mum goes for bhog on Ashtami, and I stay home. My last plate of khichuri was two years ago, at the pujo of my cousin sister’s friend, where I was a guest of a guest. In Delhi, I carried the buckets. Now I am not even in the line.
Mahalaya went the same way. Dadu’s radio gave way to a cassette player, and my 4 AM alarm gave way to sleep. My family still talks about the Mahishasura Mardini every year, and I nod and stay in bed. Nobody decided to stop. The habit just thinned out, the way childhood does.
Kolkata carries on without me. The idols are built from river clay and bamboo in the lanes of Kumartuli, and drummers walk in from their villages to play her home. I watch from the edge of the crowd now, a polite guest at a party the whole city is throwing.
For years I read all this as being left out. This morning it reads differently. Maa Durga is foremost a daughter who comes home for a few days in a year, and nobody hands her a job. She isn’t there to cut fruit or seat elders. She is there to be home. I fly in from another country, my mum is in the next room, and the dhaks reach me through the window without my lifting a finger. Some part of me still misses the volunteer badge, and some part of me is finally off duty.
By tonight the idols will be in the river, and the lane will go quiet. I will fly back to Thailand in a few days carrying no radio and no bhog, only this thump in my ears. It is the one part of Pujo that never needed anything from me, and it will be back next year.
Ashe bochhor abar hobe.
Durga Pujo in Kolkata: Things to Know Before Your First Visit
If you have never experienced Durga Pujo in Kolkata, it helps to know that you are arriving during a festival that takes over the city. Streets become pedestrian routes, neighbourhoods turn into elaborate art installations, restaurants fill up, and the crowds can be as overwhelming as the celebrations are extraordinary.
A little planning will make the experience considerably easier.
Plan around the main festival days. Durga Pujo culminates in five particularly lively days, from Shashthi to Dashami, although the celebrations and pandal visits begin earlier. Mahalaya marks an important moment in the build-up to the festival. Check the dates for the year you plan to visit, as they change annually.
You do not need to see every pandal. Kolkata’s pandals range from traditional displays to elaborate contemporary installations, and trying to fit too many into one evening can leave you spending more time in queues than actually enjoying them. Pick one area at a time, allow yourself plenty of time, and leave room for an unexpected stop.
Be prepared for crowds. Popular pandals can draw enormous queues, particularly during the evenings and on the busiest festival days. If you prefer a little more breathing room, consider visiting earlier in the day or choosing less famous neighbourhood pandals. Even then, expect crowds, noise and a fair amount of walking.
Use public transport where possible. Traffic can become extremely difficult during Pujo, and road closures or diversions may affect your plans. The Kolkata Metro can be useful for moving between areas, but services and timings may be adjusted for the festival. Check current arrangements before setting out, and be prepared to walk the final stretch.
Wear comfortable shoes and carry light essentials. You could spend hours on your feet, often standing in queues or walking through crowded streets. Wear shoes you can comfortably walk in, carry water, keep your phone charged, and bring a small bag rather than anything bulky. Kolkata can also be warm and humid, even in the evenings.
Make time for the food. Pujo is as much a celebration of eating together as it is of visiting pandals. Look out for community bhog, which often includes khichuri, labda, beguni and chutney, alongside the city’s street food and Bengali favourites. Bhog arrangements vary by pandal, and some may have specific serving times or queues, so check locally if there is somewhere you particularly want to try.
Book your stay well in advance. Hotels can fill up during the festival, and accommodation prices may rise. Choose somewhere with convenient access to the areas you want to explore rather than assuming you can easily cross the city whenever you like.
Be respectful when photographing people and rituals. The pandals may be open to visitors, but they are also places of worship and community celebration. Follow instructions from volunteers, avoid blocking queues, and ask before taking close-up photographs of people, particularly during rituals.
And one final thing: don’t measure your Pujo by the number of pandals you manage to visit. The crowds are real, the walking can be tiring, and not every part of the experience will feel magical. Give yourself permission to slow down, eat something delicious, listen to the dhak, and enjoy the moments that happen between the places you planned to see.
A Quick Note Before You Go
I think one of the strange things about growing older is discovering that the traditions we carry with us don’t always stay the same. Sometimes we grow away from them. Sometimes distance makes us miss them. And sometimes, when we return, we find that we can love something without needing to take part in it exactly as we once did.
Pujo has changed for me, and perhaps I have changed with it. I still miss the volunteer badge, the bhog, the familiar faces and those long days when being part of the celebration seemed as natural as breathing. But I am learning to make room for the version of Pujo I have now, too. One that arrives through a window, through a familiar rhythm, through the knowledge that some things will return even when we cannot be there for all of them.
If you’re planning your first trip to Kolkata for Durga Pujo, I hope this guide helps you experience the festival with a little more understanding and a little less pressure to see everything. And if, like me, you have memories of Pujo from another city or another stage of life, I hope you know that those memories still count. You don’t have to experience a tradition in exactly the same way forever for it to remain part of you.
Here on The Grounded Hippie, I write about slow travel, thoughtful adventures and the ways places stay with us long after we leave them. You can explore my travel guides for Thailand, Laos and Uzbekistan, or read more about why I have come to prefer a slower, more intentional way of travelling.
My newsletter (almost) goes out every Tuesday, with new stories, practical travel resources and reflections from the road. You can also find me on Instagram, where I share the quieter moments that don’t always make it into a blog post.
And I’d love to hear from you in the comments. Is there a festival, a family tradition, or a place that feels different to you now than it did when you were younger?
[…] Also read: A Durga Pujo Story of Coming Home […]