Ask a Bengali when Durga Puja begins, and you won't get a date. You'll get a feeling. For some it starts with the first kaash flowers swaying by the railway tracks. For others it's the Mahalaya dawn, with Birendra Krishna Bhadra's voice drifting from a radio. By Chaturthi night, the whole city has caught it.
I spent the evening moving through some pandal hopping, and each told the same story in its own way: Kolkata has been waiting for this all year.
Across all the neighbourhoods, the city itself has become part of the decoration. Streets are strung with lights, hoardings carry the goddess's face, and dhakis have returned with their drums, rehearsing the rhythms that will fill the next five days. Shops have been busy for weeks with new clothes, and sweet counters are stocked for the adda sessions to come.What stays with you is not any one pandal but the shared anticipation. Puja here isn't only a religious occasion. It is a reunion, a homecoming, and a promise kept every autumn. Those who live abroad plan their leaves around it, and those who stay say the year only truly begins now.
With Shashthi just ahead, Kolkata is holding its breath. And as I left Salt Lake near midnight, the crowds showed no sign of thinning.