KOLKATA: Adapting to the new normal, hundreds of households in the city who are in isolation followed all
safety measures and quarantine protocol while conducting
Lakshmi Puja at
home on Friday.
At Tala Park, the Ghosh family has been celebrating
Kojagari Lakshmi Puja in a big way for over four decades. But after a family member was infected with
Covid-19 earlier this week, there were concerns whether the puja could be organized. But the family made immediate changes in the puja venue and itinerary and organized the puja in a muted manner on Friday. All quarantine rules were followed and the priest performed the rituals clad in
PPE.
“We didn’t want to break the decades-long custom. But we toned down the puja significantly and shifted it out of our home where my brother has been living in isolation on one of the floors. We moved the puja to a flat that we own. Most members of our family are in quarantine at home and only those who haven’t come in direct contact with my brother organized the puja,” said Sourav Ghosh, a doctor and owner of a nursing home in Shyambazar.
The family members didn’t even go out for puja shopping and asked the house help to buy whatever was required. There was also no distribution of bhog like in earlier years. “We had prepared bhog and offered it to the deity before serving the family members. But we didn’t risk distributing it in the neighbourhood like in previous years,” said Ghosh.
The priest, Raja Bhattacharya, said he has turned down most puja requests this year fearing infection. “But I have been performing puja at the Ghosh household for the past several years. I couldn’t turn this down. But I performed the rituals maintaining all possible safety precautions,” said Bhattacharya, 37.
Piyali Roy, a homemaker from Dum Dum Park, had been in home quarantine since Saptami evening when her husband Sourav, a banker, developed high fever and tested positive to Covid on Nabami. He even had to be hospitalized for three days after he complained of breathlessness only to return home on Friday.
“I had given up the thought of conducting the puja this year but when the doctors said they were discharging my husband on Friday, I made up my mind to perform the puja even if it meant scaling it down to an absolutely homely affair,” said Roy.
She ordered some groceries and fruits online and conducted the rituals by herself while her husband was in isolation in another room. “I neither bought an idol nor called for a priest, but conducted the puja by myself at home,” she said.
For Baghajatin resident Lisa Dhar, the puja was one of her last resorts to save her elderly mother who has been down with Covid-19 for two weeks and is under ventilation at a city hospital.
“The doctors have told us that her condition is deteriorating at a rapid pace and have asked us to pray to the Almighty for her well being. I was not in the right mental condition to conduct the puja, but since my mother now needs God’s blessings more than medicines, I resolved to organize the puja at the last minute. My friends did the shopping and we conducted it at a separate flat where my husband and I have been staying in quarantine,” said Dhar.