Jaipur: A peep into bhog kitchens of Durga mandaps

JAIPUR: A group of 20 chefs – colloquially known as “thakur” in Bengali – have come from Bengal to cook food for the ongoing Durga Puja. No, this group is not meant for all puja pandals in the city. Only one puja pandal in the city – the Bani Park Durga Bari – has hired this team.
“Even 20 people are not enough. A few locals have also joined hands with them to cook bhog for the three days of Durga Puja. Monday was Maha Ashtami (eighth day) and the most important day. We have served bhog to no less than 5,000 devotees,” said Sudipto Sen from the Jaipur Durga Bari.
So, what does it take to prepare food for these 5,000-odd people? “Well, we prepare ‘khichdi’ on the three days. On Monday we prepared this with rice and dal weighing 500 kgs. In addition, there was labra (a mixed vegetable curry) and chutney and rice pudding. In addition, 400 litres of milk was used to prepare the rice pudding for 5,000 people,” added Sen.
Around 11 kms away from this venue, at the Khalsa Palace in Malviya Nagar another committee named Shri Adi Shakti Welfare Trust is organizing puja for the second year. Started in 2019, the committee could not organize puja for two years due to the pandemic.
“The best part about the bhog is ‘khichdi’ never tastes like this every day. No matter how and in what quantity you cook it, it tastes different when you offer it as bhog. Around 500 devotees had bhog in our pandal today,” said Dhruva Datta, the secretary of this puja committee.
All puja committees normally prepare two types of bhog. One, cooked by Brahmin men or women, known as mool (main) bhog that is offered for puja. The second is the community bhog that is prepared by hired chefs.
“Once the puja is complete, we mix the mool bhog with the community bhog and serve it to all,” added Datta.