Every year, Bengal waits for Durga Puja.
We welcome Ma Durga as our daughter returning to her parental home. The city transforms. New clothes are bought, pandals are built, lights illuminate the streets, and millions step out to celebrate those five days. For many, it is the most anticipated time of the year.
And there is an entire economy waiting for it.
When Devotion Becomes a Spectacle
Look at how we celebrate Durga Puja. New clothes, pandal hopping, photographs, social gatherings, and the pressure to enjoy these five days to the fullest.
Everyone wants to experience the festival, but how many are interested in understanding its meaning?
We see the Goddess outside, but rarely look within ourselves. The celebration becomes an experience to enjoy, a tradition to follow and an identity to display.
Perhaps the problem is not that we celebrate too much, but that we never question what we are celebrating.
The Economics of Faith
Durga Puja is also a huge economic opportunity. Businesses wait for the sales, puja committees compete for recognition, and political leaders find opportunities to strengthen their influence.
There is nothing wrong with an economy growing around a festival. The question is whether devotion has become another means of satisfying our desires for money, recognition, and power.
We invest so much in making the celebration bigger every year. But are we equally interested in understanding its meaning?
The pandals become grander, the competition becomes tougher, and the business grows. Yet the ego that drives our desires remains untouched.
Worshipping the Goddess While Humiliating Women
We worship Ma Durga as the symbol of feminine power, yet incidents of eve-teasing and harassment continue during the celebrations.
The irony is difficult to ignore. We worship the Goddess but fail to respect women around us.
What is the meaning of this devotion if our behaviour contradicts what we claim to worship?
Perhaps we are more interested in the identity of being religious than in understanding what religion demands from us.
The Prakriti We Celebrate and the Prakriti We Damage
We celebrate the Goddess while polluting the very environment we live in. The waste, the noise and the careless use of resources raise an uncomfortable question about our relationship with nature.
We claim to respect Prakriti, yet our desire to celebrate often comes without the responsibility to protect it.
Isn't this another expression of the ego? We want pleasure, but we do not want to question its cost.
Dharma Is Not the Preservation of Our Image
We often confuse following social customs with understanding Dharma. We perform rituals, follow traditions, and identify ourselves as religious. But none of these automatically leads to self-understanding.
Actual Dharma should make us question ourselves - our ego, our desires, and our attachment to our own identity.
It is a movement from self-preservation towards self-dissolution. Not protecting the image we have created of ourselves, but examining what lies behind it.
But how many of us are willing to question ourselves when society already approves of what we do?
I Am Not Outside This Contradiction
I am not writing this as someone who has always understood these things. I have also been part of this culture and participated in the same celebrations.
But now I am beginning to question what religion actually offers us. Perhaps its real purpose is not merely to fulfil our desires or preserve our traditions, but to help us see the ego that operates behind them.
I am still on that journey. I am not claiming to have dissolved my ego. I am only trying to see it more clearly.
And perhaps that is where the real work begins.
The Goddess Defeats Mahishasura Every Year. We Make Sure He Survives.
Every year, we celebrate the Goddess defeating Mahishasura. Yet our ego, desires, and attachment to recognition continue to grow.
We keep the Asura confined to a mythological story so that we never have to look for him within ourselves.
We celebrate his destruction without questioning the desires that govern our own lives.
Perhaps the real question this Durga Puja is not whether we believe in the Goddess, but whether we are willing to examine ourselves.
The Goddess defeats Mahishasura every year. We make sure he survives.
Happy Durga Puja to all. I hope we begin to question ourselves, too.