THE FRINGE FESTIVAL

Durga was startled in her sleep. It had only been a few hours since her last babu (client) left and she dragged her overworked twenty two-year old body back to the bed, this time to descend into her dreams. She dreamt of a schoolyard filled with smiling little girls. They were singing the school prayer, just as she used to.

It had been a busy day for Durga. She helped the kids of her Sonagachi (Calcutta’s biggest red light area) neighborhood to decorate rickety raths (wooden chariots). Mamoni, her best friend Putul’s five-year old daughter, was most demanding of her favorite mashi (aunt). It was Rath Yatra (the festival of chariots). Durga had an artistic knack that she would like to put to use, particularly on such occasions. Most days weren’t as welcoming as this one. They were dreary.

Durga opened the window shutters slightly and peered outside. The eastern sky had started to light up. In the disappearing darkness, she saw two human figures trying to scoop something off the courtyard. She was about to sound the alarm when it dawned upon her that it was Rath Yatra, hence the occasion of kathamo pujo (the structure worship). This was the day when the patuas (idol makers) of Kumartuli (Calcutta’s hub of idol making) began erecting the bamboo structures for the Durga Puja (the festival of worshipping goddess Durga) idols.

Among the patuas, it was considered inauspicious to worship goddess Durga without seeking out the blessings of ganika (courtesans), even if they were otherwise stigmatized and ostracized by the society. Thus originated the little-known, age-old custom of collecting a handful of ganika mrittika (courtesan soil) from the nishiddho pallis (forbidden quarters) of Calcutta, where sex workers lived, and adding it to the clay mixture which went into the making of the Durga idol.

Durga smiled and closed the shutters. As she retracted to her bed, she remembered this day from the previous years. Pandit Taralochon Bhattacharya would stop at Sonagachi after taking a holy dip in the Ganga. He was a fourth generation purohit (priest). Taralochon Purohit would beg Durga and the other girls to gift the punya maati (sacred soil) as an act of blessing.

Initially the girls obliged, but over time they started objecting to the practice, calling it a sham. Lately Durga would see the purohit collecting the soil himself. He would chant mantras from the scriptures during the ritual and would position his fingers in a yogic mudra (gesture) while scooping up the soil.

The trespassers in her courtyard must be accomplices of the patuas, concluded Durga. She had heard that on few occasions these folks offered cash to bribe the sex workers. One incident was even funnier. A patua was caught sneaking into one of the brothels to collect the soil while impersonating as a babu. Apparently, they could not do away with the ganika mrittika.

Taralochon Purohit had explained the practice in the following way: “Ma Durga will be displeased if those who worship her do not take your blessings.”

A belligerent Durga replied, “You can’t make goddesses out of us once a year and then call us whores for the rest of the year. We have some respect, don’t treat us like criminals. We’re not here out of choice. Poverty has forced us to be here. Let society do something for us and then we’ll willingly give you the soil." She had reasons to be hostile.

Durga was born in the Sunderbans delta region of West Bengal. Her father was a fisherman, eking out a meager living to feed a family of ten. However, he ensured that all of his eight children attended school. Durga was known in her village as the girl with the golden voice.

Growing up, her songs were about the earth, the sky, and her village. Then, one day, she met a man who was visiting her family and felt attracted to him. He was nearly twice her age and was working in far-away places. With rapt attention, she would listen for hours to his tales of travels to big cities. She was impressed by everything about him—his bicycle, his radio, his clothes. Her songs began to change into her love for him.

When she became a teenager, the man told her that he would marry her, and that he would make her a famous singer one day. It was not uncommon for girls of her age to be married. Many of her friends did so already. There was little incentive for families to keep their daughters in school. The older a girl got, the more her family would have to pay for her dowry.

One early morning, Durga slipped out her village with her beau and boarded a bus. It was dark when they arrived in Calcutta. She had heard so many stories about the place. However, the sheer size of the city and its din and bustle completely overwhelmed this quaint village girl. Her heart was pounding – terrified of being caught, but thrilled at the prospect of settling down with the man she loved.

He introduced her to a middle-aged woman and told her that he wanted to keep her safe with his aunt until her parents stopped looking for them. He would return for her in a few days. She was reluctant to see him go, but trusted his decision.

That night, in the moonlight, she saw girls in short skirts and red lipstick lining up the street. When a man approached one of them, the girl led him into their house. Next morning, Durga asked the aunt about these girls. She spoke to her in a hollow voice devoid of emotion. Her man had sold her to this lady, and that she would have to work off her debt by joining those girls each night.

To ‘break’ her in, Durga was raped several times a night for nearly a month before the madam started selling her to men for money. “You’re a flower that will be plucked over and again,” smirked the woman. Soon, she was entertaining ten to twelve babus a night.

Mahamaya Devi and her fellow ashram dwellers, about fifty of them, were meeting Bindeshwari Pathak in their Vrindavan hermitage. Ms. Pathak was the founder of Sulabh India that cared for the widows in Vrindavan and Varanasi. A month ago, the group had expressed their desire to visit Calcutta during the Durga Puja.

These widows, all of whom were natives of West Bengal, arrived in Vrindavan at different stages of life, over the past several decades. Like Mahamaya, who was nearing 80 years of age, they all had been rejected by the society. However, this meeting was in a different spirit. Ms. Pathak was there to let these hapless souls know that her organization had agreed to fulfil their wish; these women would be flown to Calcutta to join the Durga Puja festivities. That news suddenly brought a rush of emotions in Mahamaya. When was the last time she partook in such fanfare? That would be nearly six decades ago! She had a husband then.

Mahamaya grew up in a small village in Comilla, Bangladesh. Her family, living off a small plot of land, could barely put her through primary school. It was more important for her brothers to pursue further education. So, she spent time developing skills in needlework and handicrafts. Her work was appreciated in her village, where Hindus and Muslims coexisted peacefully. That was before the partition of India. Then the Noakhali riots of 1946 happened.

She vividly remembered that day of Kojagari Lakshmi Puja (autumnal worship of goddess Laxmi). She and her sisters were busy preparing for the events of that night. It was late in the afternoon. They had just finished decorating the courtyard, when her elder brother arrived home and announced that the Muslims of the village were assembling at the local mosque. He had overheard that the Muslim community was under attack from the Hindus and Sikhs in the neighboring Noakhali district. What unleashed next was a living hell!

As darkness fell, bands of Muslim men went from house to house looking for Hindus. They had cut off of the village path leading to the main road. Mahamaya’s house abutted a large tank. With no option to escape, the family decided to fortify the house. The men piled up every available piece of furniture against the front door and stood guard, while the women retreated to rear of the house.

Several houses were already aflame. The cry of Allah o Akbar (God is great) mingled with desperate pleas of help filled the air. Mahamaya’s house came under attack not long after that. At the sound of the crashing of the furniture pile, she and her younger siblings slipped through a window and sought refuge in the cowshed. In the light of the bloodshot moon veiled in the rising smoke, they witnessed an unknown group of assailants pouncing upon their elder sister like a pack of wolves.

The first rays of a new day brought even greater misery for the family. The father’s body was recovered from the field adjacent to the house. Mahamaya’s elder sister was found in the pond; she had drowned herself. Her elder brother was missing. The village school headmaster, Mokhtar Ahmad, offered shelter to the devastated family. His daughter, Reshma, was a close friend of Mahamaya. A week later, the family decided to move to Dhaka to live with her maternal uncle. Then, on an auspicious day, Mahamaya got married. She joined her husband on a long train ride to Calcutta.

Mahalaya’s new family was living in a refugee colony on the eastern edge of the city. Among their neighbors, several had fled the Noakhali riots. Her husband held a floor job at a jute mill. She wholeheartedly embraced her role as a housewife lest the memories of that fateful night would came back to haunt her.

Over the next several years, the neighborhood saw a huge influx of refugees driven by the partition of the Indian subcontinent. Mahamaya’s family also grew. She gave birth to a beautiful daughter, whom they named, Menaka. The colony dwellers gradually began to pick up their lives – lives they had left behind on the other side of the political divide. Eventually, they would have their own Durga Puja celebrations. Mahamaya would miss her village on such occasions. She had not seen her family ever since she got married. Little did she know that her life was about to take an unexpected turn that would pale her past tragedy.

Around the time Menaka turned five, the jute mill had a new owner. In a bid to improve profit margin, the management decided to lay off a portion of the staff. Mahamaya’s husband got the axe. The affected employees staged protests in front of the mill. The police, arriving to restore order, fired on the protestors. That led to several fatalities, including Mahamaya’s husband.

Suddenly, Mahamaya’s world tumbled. Her husband was the primary bread earner of the large refugee family. With her limited education and only skill in handicrafts, she could not even come close to feeding herself and her daughter. Her husband’s family would no longer support her. She gave up Menaka for adoption and set off for Vrindavan to spend the rest of her life as a lonely widow.

Settling in an unknown place with women similar to her background proved to be challenging for Mahamaya. They were given a stipend of five rupees, which would be used to buy food and fuel. Soon life fell into despair and continued unabated for several decades. Finally, the Supreme Court intervened and asked Sulabh International to act as the Good Samaritan. The stipend received a generous boost and the women became eligible for healthcare. Upon hearing about the trip, Mahamaya began to cry in delight – a feeling she had not experienced in a very long time.

Durga had reasons to smile. This year, the Sonagachi Ganika Samiti (the organization of sex workers of Sonagachi) had pushed hard to organize its own Durga Puja. It had approached the Burtolla police to celebrate the Puja at the crossing of Abinash Kabiraj Mistri Lane and Masjidbari Road. The police denied permission to put up a pandal at the requested location quoting traffic obstruction. So, the Samiti petitioned the Calcutta High Court, which thundered in their favor and asked the Commissioner of Police to show cause. The news came that the court had ruled in favor of the sex workers.

Ostracized from Durga Puja pandals, the sex workers of Sonagachi had for the first time broken the shackles of social prejudice to organize their own puja. They had been barred from performing anjali (offering) and taking part in other rituals at the barwari (communal) celebrations. Even their children would be shooed away from these places. Now, under the court directive, they would be erecting a small pandal at Nilmoni Mitra Street, not far from Sonagachi. The decision to observe the puja with all its rituals – preparations, cooking, pushpanjali (flower offering), sindur khela (vermillion fest) – was greeted heartily by all the members. The puja committee drew up a healthy budget to which every sex worker agreed to contribute and most even got their babus to pitch in.

Durga got into high gear. She was in-charge of the cultural activities. The children were organized into a group, named Komalgandha (the sweet-smelling ones), which would be performing in the cultural programs. One of the Samiti staff, who was a Brahmin, consented to conducting the puja. They hired two dhakis (drummers) while the patuas agreed to build a six-foot Durga idol at a nominal cost.

Mahamaya was bewildered upon stepping inside the aircraft. The formalities involved to reach that point had overwhelmed the group of widows, all of whom would be flying for the first time. An elegantly dressed lady helped Mahamaya to buckle into her seat. She learned that they were the air hostesses. Then the plane took off. As it climbed, Mahamaya could see that she was reaching for the clouds – the clouds she had seen hanging high above her village, the clouds bearing rain, the clouds reflecting the golden rays of the setting sun – and the earth she was all too familiar with was disappearing fast. About an hour later, the group reached Calcutta.

Once on the ground, the ladies were whisked away to a welcoming function organized by a youth group. The visitors were serenaded and greeted to the beating of the traditional dhaak (drum). There were additional felicitations at several Puja pandals in the following days. At a few of those locations, the widows were asked to light the inaugural lamps. One pandal even had a replica of the famous Sri Krishna temple of Vrindavan.

Mahamaya was in a trance having received so much of attention in such a short span. That was in stark contrast to her solitary life at the ashram over all these years. The social norms call for isolation of widows; even their shadows are to be avoided. Yet, in the midst of this new-found attention, her eyes would search for the life she had left behind in this megapolis decades ago, one that was centered on her Menaka.

On the night of Ashtami (the second of the four-day festival), the group was visiting various locations of North Calcutta under special arrangements for hassle-free pandal hopping. Mahamaya and her companions had finished the Rabindra Kanan pandal and were proceeding towards their pick up location on Jatindra Mohan Avenue. Their next stop would be the Bagbazar Pally Puja.

As they crossed Nilmoni Mitra Street, Mahamaya heard a little girl’s voice over the mic (microphone). She was attempting to sing Kabiguru Rabindranath’s song in a halting tone. Mahamaya left her group and wandered in the direction of the song. There, on a raised platform, stood the little girl. She was about five-year old, clad in a saree that plentifully covered her small structure. Mahamaya stood among the puja revelers, mesmerized at the sight. The girl was her Menaka, or so she thought. The child was rendering the same song that Mahamaya had Menaka singing at their last Durga Puja together.

Mahamaya could not remember how long she stood transfixed. She regained her senses at the call of “didima” (grandma). A pretty young woman was holding her near the edge of the dais. She wanted to know whether Mahamaya would like to sit down. Instead, Mahamaya asked for water. All that walking had made her thirsty.

The young woman, offering a glass of water, introduced herself as Durga and explained how she had prepared Mamoni and the other kids to put up a memorable show. That was her moment to cherish. “For us to organize this puja is a way of empowering ourselves and ensuring that we enjoy equal rights as other citizens," quipped Durga. Mahamaya wanted to know if she could meet Mamoni.

Durga beckoned Mahamaya to follow her. The two went into the pandal where they found Mamoni in the arms of her mother. She had a fistful of candies from puja offerings that she was eagerly consuming. Her blabbering about the stage performance fell silent at the sight of an unknown person walking towards them with her mashi. Durga introduced the visitor to Putul as Mahamaya stood next to the girl. She was clinging to her mom and peered into Mahamaya’s apprehensive face. Mahamaya extended her hand and gently stroked Mamoni’s hair. Her craggy face lit up with a smile as the little girl buried hers in her mother’s shoulder.

There, under the observant gaze of goddess Durga, gathered the fringe members of the society. Suddenly, the Sarbojanin Durgotsav (Durga Puja Festival for All) felt a lot more inclusive. Someone announced outside, “Mahamaya Devi, please come to the stage. Members of your party are looking for you.”

Princeton, NJ
5.24.2014

Author’s note: The Sarbojanin Durga Puja celebrations in Kolkata had a more meaningful tone last year with the participation of two communities who are often treated as “outcasts": sex workers, and widows. The events lie at the heart of this story.