"Shubho Mahalaya"

For the longest time in my childhood, waking up at the crack of dawn to listen to ‘Mahishasurmardini’ on the radio was an adventure…a thrill…suddenly the ‘shiuli’ smelt sweeter and the white clouds in the clear blue skies became more meaningful..Durga Pujo was almost here! It also meant the start of a new year of my life…as ‘debipokkho’ began…my countdown to my birthday did too…after all, I was also born during ‘debipokkho’…and this feeling has always been special to me…it connects me to Maa Durga so much more..

But one day, the meaning of Mahalaya was to change for me...and how! The excitement for waking up at dawn was replaced by waking up early – not at the crack of dawn – to trudge along to Ganga ghat and offer  ‘tarpan’ for my father…standing in knee deep water…chanting prayers…for the departed…the charm of Mahalaya kept sinking with every prayer I offered…the disconnect between the beginning of the Debipokkho and the death of the one person I have loved the most in my life growing stronger every year…every time this ritual was repeated… two very special feelings died inside me…the excitement of Mahalaya..and the memories of sharing these moments with my father…

I have stopped offering tarpan at the Ganga now…it’s been a year or two…mainly because I was away from the city at Mahalaya…this year, I am back in Kolkata…and last night someone reminded me about waking up at four again…to turn on the radio…I realized the awakening of a strange attraction…the one I had come to miss…and now that we were back in the city, and my mother looked through to find me the prayer to offer for tarpan in the morning…I found myself praying hard that she didn’t find it…

And when she didn’t…only then, I set my alarm to 4am…kept my earphones beside my pillow…and slept with the same sense of adventure in my heart…it was new….listening to ‘Mahishasurmardini’ inside a dark room…as everyone else slept…and I was lost in it again…'Jaago Durga, Jaago Doshoprohoronodharini'…played on the radio…and I could feel the re-awakening of those two very special feelings in my soul…in solitude, they came back to me…'Shubho Mahalaya'…I wished only two people from the darkness of that room…one of them was my father…

…and when I stood in front of my father’s photograph in the morning…I could feel the connect again…so lost in thoughts I was, that I got a little late to leave home for work…but how does that matter?