Durga Puja

Published on 1st October, 2017, in Mid-day. If you were a craftsman hailing from the Gangetic Plains, or from Assam, Bengal, or Odisha, it is quite likely that you would have celebrated Vishwakarma Puja, just towards the end of Pitra Paksha, and just before Mahalaya, the first day of Navratri. Pitra Paksha, when ancestors or pitris are venerated, focuses on death. Navratri focuses on rebirth. Thus Vishwakarma Puja is located at the cusp between death and rebirth. Makes sense as Vishwakarma is the divine craftsman, patron of all craftsmen. The day specific to this puja is Kanya Sankranti, when the sun enters the House of ..

Published on 22nd October, 2015, on www.dailyo.in . Come Durga Puja, there's a flood of articles on the origin of the festival in the zamindari culture of Bengal, which sought to appease the East India Company in the 18th century. Not one has any reference to the possible roots in the Gosani Jatra of the Puri temple in Odisha. Why? Oversight? Ignorance? Deliberate? Must Odias smell a conspiracy? The rosogolla wars have not been forgotten, with the Odia claim that the sweet dish originated three centuries ago around the Puri temple complex as an appeasement offering to Lakshmi, the consort of the presiding deity Jagannatha, ..