What 12 men did three centuries ago to make Durga Puja accessible to all | Eye News,The Indian Express
As Unesco recognises Kolkata’s Durga Puja in its Lists of Intangible Cultural Heritage, a look at where it all began in the oldest town in West Bengal, Guptipara
There are some versions of the story of how the barowari puja started way back in 1759, depending on whom one asks. A community leader and a resident of Guptipara, 52-year-old Subrata Mondal’s research led him to the handful of old books that document the town’s history when it was still a village, written by local historians, one of which is Nrishingha Prasad Bhattacharjee’s book ‘Guptipara’s True Story & the First Barowari’.
Among these stories, one says that in 1759, when a group of women from the village went to a zamindar bari to pray, they were made to leave, perhaps because the family was unwilling to permit outsiders to pray inside their home. Angry at the perceived insult, the men in the village decided to hold their own puja where the community could pray.
Buy Now | Our best subscription plan now has a special price
It is difficult to identify the zamindar bari in question because it does not find mention in available archival records. Just a stone’s throw from the location believed to be where the first barowari puja started, is the imposing approximately 400-year-old Sen bari, built in pre-British architecture in the Murshidabad style, which some believe is the zamindar bari where the conflict first occurred in the mid 1700s.
Mondal believes that there is little authenticity to claims that the villagers were made to leave the Sen zamindar bari, but that has done little to put a stop to the myths surrounding the incident. “It was the nearest home to the location,” Mondal says, which has resulted in people propagating the legend. “It is an old story, but it happened in a zamindar’s home during Durga Puja,” he says.
Rating: 5