Durga Puja

This past weekend was the Hindu religious holiday of Durga Puja. Puja means worship. There are many different Pujas in the Hindu religion but Durga Puja is the most popular one for Bengali people. Since Durga is one of the gods of destruction and bay of Bengal is a place frequently ravaged by destruction, I think there is a correlation. It is also a reminder for us that there are more than 15 million Hindu people in Bangladesh and that while Muslims make up a vast majority, Hindus are a significant portion of the population. One of our Hindu staff invited us to come to visit his house during Durga Puja. This was just an evening visit since he lives just on the other side of Bogra.

We headed over to his house and ended up going to the local Hindu temple first. The narrow street outside the temple was draped with Christmas lights which were flashing and the sides of the street were lined with vendors selling an array of snacks and children's toys. There was loud music playing and tons of people all about. We got into the actual temple grounds where a large group of people were looking at the idols that they make fresh every year for the puja. Durga Puja lasts 5 days and they make an entire set of the idols every year. They are made from a mixture of clay and mud which are then painted with all sorts of bright colors. At the end of the 5 days of worship, the idols are then thrown into the river in a ceremony that I didn't get a chance to go see.

After being fed until we were almost bursting, we made our leave and decided to go see what some of the other idols looked like. Several of the temples that we found were quite old buildings and their idols were typically more elaborate than the ones we saw in our co-workers part of town. After seeing roughly 5 temples we decided that we were too tired to continue on and called it a night. It was definitely an interesting adventure though.