KOLKATA: The advance of cyclonic storm Titli towards making landfall early on Thursday morning has left puja organizers across the city with an unenviable task: protecting Durga, Bengal’s favourite goddess, from Indra, the rain god in
Hindu mythology. And they have called up everything — from the ubiquitous plastic sheet (to protect pandals and idols) to the far rarer astroturf (to keep parks and squares walkable) — for this tough fight on the cards.
Wednesday’s rain seemed to bear out the Met department’s forecast of the storm veering towards Kolkata and rain lashing the city on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The silver lining in the prediction — that the intensity would wane from Sunday, leading to a sunny Durga Puja next week — failed to cheer organisers overmuch.
“I feel devastated. The festival is scheduled for the third week of October, when
monsoon is usually over, and so we have planned for a large portion of the pandal to be open-to-air with artwork made of paper. There are over 2,500 birds and boxes made of newspapers in Origami-style, which I fear will be damaged beyond repair in the rain. We are now trying to secure it for the moment with plastic sheets but I doubt much can be protected,” award-winning architect Abin Chowdhury, who designed the theme at Behala Natun Dal this year, said on Wednesday.
At Suruchi Sangha, a crowd-puller that never fails to disappoint pandal hoppers, organisers are spending the day battling the weather instead of fine-tuning crowd-control arrangements. Large plastic sheets were hurriedly procured and the entire clay pandal covered when the sky turned dark on Wednesday afternoon.
“Some of the clay work may get washed away if the rain intensifies. We are also worried about strong winds. We are, for the moment, covering up as much of the pandal as possible with plastic sheets but after the CM inaugurates the puja on Friday, we cannot keep it wrapped up like this,” spokesperson Swarup Biswas said.
Plastic sheets, silver sand & bricks come to rescue
Organisers at Kankurgachhi Mitali, too, have draped their pandal with plastic to keep the rainwater away. But a gust of wind toppled one of the advertisement pillars on Wednesday. With heavy showers forecast for Friday and Saturday, club assistant secretary Basu Tarafdar feared the protection would be insufficient. “Let’s hope for a miracle,” he said.
At
Jodhpur Park Sarbajanin, too, plastic sheets have come to the rescue of the jute decoration. “The wind speed can wreak havoc,” spokesperson Sumantra Ray said.
Organisers of the Pujas held in parks are worried about waterlogging in case of heavy downpour and the slush it could leave behind. Organisers of Salt Lake’s FD Block Puja will get the ground covered with artificial grass. “We’ll have thousands of children dragging their parents to the Puja as the theme is Dinosaur Park. The dinosaurs will be indoors but the ground will have to be negotiated to reach the pandal. We are incurring an additional expense of Rs 3 lakh,” said puja secretary Soumitra Mukhopadhyay.
At Maddox Square the rain is giving organisers the jitters. The zamindari house-style pandal is protected with earth embankments and trenches to divert the rainwater but the ground will become muddy if it pours hard. “We are getting silver sand and keeping sawdust handy to cover the wet parts,” Puja committee functionary
Ranajit Chakraborty said.
The iron-made Naktala Udayan Sangha pandal won’t be affected by rain. “But we have decided to lay bricks around the pandal for the visitors to walk on,” committee general secretary Bappaditya Dasgupta said.