R G Kar issue, burning of ‘Sati’ to feature in Durga Puja marquees in Kolkata

Kolkata: ‘Sati-daha’, the old practice of immolating widows, and Ajanta Cave’s artworks will be among the myriad themes of this year’s Durga Puja festival to be observed in the backdrop of the RG Kar hospital incident, which will also feature in graffiti around one of the Kolkata marquees.

Every year, several puja organisers in West Bengal choose themes, mainly social issues and current incidents, and use their pandals, idols and lighting arrangements to depict them.

As protests against the rape and murder of an on-duty doctor in state-run R G Kar Medical College and Hospital over a month ago continued in and around Kolkata, debates are raging about whether pomp should be associated with the puja in this unhappy atmosphere.

While a section of the Durga Puja organisers are going ahead with their plans made well in advance, not ready to mix the festival with other issues, one has decided that it will feature the horrific August 9 incident in graffiti around the marquee.

"Amid the festivities, we will put up posters seeking justice for Tilottoma. There will be graffiti on road in our locality and leading to the pandal demanding safety of women," an organiser of Naktala Nabapally Durgapuja committee in south Kolkata said.

A section of the media has been calling the deceased doctor ‘Tilottama’ to avoid disclosing her real name. Identifying a rape victim is prohibited by a Supreme Court order.

"In our pandal, there will be graffiti demanding a world free of attacks on women, justice for sexual abuse victims and a call to give women the right to claim the night. The artworks will be created by students of art colleges and locals," a puja committee spokesperson said.

Posters with words like 'Justice for R G Kar' and 'We Want Justice' with sketches of a woman fighting abuses will be painted in red and black, he said.

The issue of attacks on women in a different form and from a different era will also come up in the puja marquee in the metropolis.

Kasi Bose Lane, one of the crowd-puller pujas in north Kolkata, will be paying tribute to 19th-century social reformers and polymaths Rammohan Roy and Iswarchandra Vidyasagar.

The two icons of Bengal were instrumental in eliminating evils like burning of women after the death of their husbands and removing stigma in widow re-marriage, respectively.

The organisers conceptualised this under the theme, 'Ratnagarbha' (women who give birth to gem-like children).

"The pioneering works of these two reformers saved the lives of thousands of women. The children of many of them later left their footprints in society. Our sculptor and theme artist Rintu Das has chiselled the idol in a way that the visitors can see themselves as children in the womb," puja committee General Secretary Somen Dutta told PTI.

There will be a 20-foot-tall semi-transparent picture of Rammohan Roy at the entry of the pandal and a flaming cloth under which models of women forced to die on pyres of their dead husbands will be placed.

Inside the marquee, widows of those times can be seen with colourful butterflies to mark a different journey, Dutta said.

Santoshpur Lake Pally, a puja organiser of south Kolkata, is going ahead with preparations to execute the theme 'Chalchitro' (backdrop), projecting the rock carvings found in Ajanta caves.

"Our puja will show the influence of Ajanta cave paintings on Indian painters since 1909. The entire pandal will turn into a museum on Ajanta school of art," said Somnath Das, a senior member of the puja committee.

The Bhawanipore 75 Pally in south Kolkata has themed its puja on the tagline "Tobu tomar kachhe amar hridoy” (Still my heart goes for you), taking the lines of a poem by popular 20th century Bengali poet Jibanananda Das.

"It is all about our favourite city of joy, Kolkata, and its changing landscape," Puja committee spokesperson Subir Das said.

Members of these puja committees did not support the idea of a festival that is devoid of its colour, as demanded by a section of protesters against the RG Kar incident.

“Kolkata’s Durga Puja has been conferred with UNESCO intangible heritage tag. The entire city turns into an art gallery for the five days, People should be allowed to see that," Das said.

"We all want those involved in this barbaric crime to be brought to book and given exemplary punishment. But festivals are also important from various aspects,” said Dutta.