Durga Puja, here is it?

That golden sunlight of sharod? That crush of last minute shoppers, pandals coming up hinting tantalising of the fantastic shapes and forms they will eventually reveal and giving rise to horrific jams along with the shoppers. And then what? All of Kolkata and surrounding districts (all 19 of them) jostling, shoving, elbowing their way everywhere ... on roads, lanes, gullies, shops, footpaths, pandals...

And that eternal dilemma - To go see the pandals (a very wearisome, tiresome, pain inducing - head, bone and joints, knees and in a multitude other places...the thrill of having seen incredible pujos and irritation at not being able to describe it to those who havent) or not to go and sit at home, not achy all over... except perhaps in the heart... and feeling curiously flat and left out. Is this then, the pujo'r amej?

Well its been so hot and sticky with some furious but short spells of rains...not much golden sarad sunlight. And the crowds...well they have been curiously absent...even though we have been returning home each night quaking with fear of getting stuck. Hasnt' happened yet. Even the pandals are snailing their way up. Are not even causing any traffic jams...Usually by this time, one would be able to tell what each pandal would be like. . And I find myself missing it all...the empty roads, the bamboo-rope-canvas pandals look so naked and sad and we are verging on Panchami...which is tomorrow. Were the build up to the pujas ever so silent? Ever so frenzy-less? Ever so not chaotic?

Then I come home, look out the window and see among dark trees, under a cloudy sky, the Maddox Square pandal - finished at last...standing white, serene in the dark calm of night .... waiting for the rush, from tomorrow or perhaps day after...