Religious Fest? Reality Show? Sponsored Program? A little of all these? Monojit Lahiri lays it on the line, examining how Durga Puja 2024 merges tradition with commercialization and showbiz in today's world. 

Durga Puja 2024 has transformed from a simple religious celebration into a grand festival of culture, commercialization, and entertainment. As Kolkata's most iconic event, the Puja season now sees major brands, celebrity endorsements, and vibrant festivities across pandals, drawing visitors from around the world. While some lament the shift towards corporatization, others celebrate the event's evolution into a pan-India cultural extravaganza. From traditional rituals to glamorous displays, Durga Puja continues to captivate with its fusion of heritage and modernity.

A Nostalgic Celebration of Pujas

Once upon a time, Pujas meant an innocent celebration of joy and fun: new clothes, new movies, eating out, and spending time with friends and relatives for non-stop adda. “It was the one time in the year that you actually got to see, up close, the most breathtakingly exquisite Bangla beauties from those traditional, north Kolkata homes," swears an enthusiastic veteran Kolkata-based Puja-tracker, adding, “For most of the year, these sublime creatures were either heavily chaperoned or in purdah! God, how we looked forward to our trips to the north Kolkata Puja Pandals. Our annual magnificent obsession."

Apart from watching all the beautifully dressed women, it was also the one time in the year when status, color, creed, community, or caste was cast aside, along with everyday tensions and hassles, to embrace the true spirit of the occasion. "Oh," continues the enthusiastic flashbacker, "the Pujas were also a huge matchmaking setting, and countless weddings owe their allegiance to Ma Durga! Overall, it was a much-awaited and eagerly anticipated 4-day whoopee, a refreshing break from the rigors of everyday life, filled with excitement, fun, and laughter.”

The Changing Face of Pujas

Today, as we once again step into Puja mode in 2024, do we feel somewhere, somehow, a change in the Puja celebrations? In terms of form and content, look and feel, style and substance, has the character of yesteryear's innocent fun, simple pleasures, and community bonding been hijacked by commercialization and showbiz? Have the essential cultural, religious, and social aspects been replaced by heavy-duty corporatization and consumerism, with big-ticket FMCG players providing their own mantras? Has Kumartuli (Kolkata’s revered setting where the world’s finest Durga clay models are created by skilled artisans) been sacrificed at the altar of brand-driven trade and commerce?

A Clash of Perspectives

There are differing voices on this transformation. “In our time,” flashbacks an oldie from Delhi's Kolkata-C.R. Park, “the first whiff of breeze that indicated seasonal change signaled the advent of Pujas. Mahalaya, of course, was the real trailer before the main event! Puja meant new clothes, fun with family and friends, visiting pandals, eating out, watching theater and Bangla movies late into the night at the neighborhood pandal, offering prayers with our near and dear ones. It was simple, spontaneous, pure, innocent, untrammeled by the gaudy, vulgar opulence that marks today’s Puja celebrations. Modeling Durga Ma's image to look like film stars Alia, Madhuri, Aishwarya, Deepika, Priyanka, or Katrina… chee chee!”

On the other hand, adman Samir Datta, while unable to conceal his amusement at this attack from senior citizens, believes that such harsh words only represent old-fashioned, stuck-in-a-time-warp radical thinking. “Let’s face it. Today’s Pujas are high-spend, high-throng occasions, and big brands will naturally want to grab a piece of the action. As long as it doesn't conflict with the basic cultural and religious template, it’s cool.”

The Rise of Corporatization

Interestingly, the corporatization of the Pujas started around the mid-eighties when the big FMCG Dadas realized that the Pujas, as a mega event, drove mega consumption of products and services. Wouldn’t advertising and publicizing their brands in such a fabulous "captive target base" be just perfect? That’s when it began... and soon a deluge followed! Next up were awards, prize money, and publicity for the best Puja pandals, and the movement took off.

Today, three decades later, Kolkata has emerged as a major retail hub, with consumption of lifestyle products going through the roof during the Puja season. A big-shot retailer had an interesting observation: “Before the Pujas, Bengalis focused heavily on clothes, food, and gift items. Afterwards, before Diwali, metal objects hit their wallets and come in for a boom.”

Commercialization or Tradition?

So, is the commercialization of Pujas a reality? Kolkata-based management consultant Partho Mazumdar believes that the answer is an unqualified YES! "To be truthful, if it weren’t for brand support, the festival couldn’t have ever happened on such a large scale. The flip side is that tradition, in some fashion, will take a hit. The much-cherished Anondomela of my childhood has practically disappeared, fleetingly alive in some Delhi Pujas in close-knit building associations. However, let’s salute the corporates who systematically set aside a chunky budget each year for socially relevant activities."

Delhi-based HR consultant Sanjay Chaudhury, however, believes that Pujas can never be branded or commercialized “because one worships the essence of the idol, NOT the idol itself!" He feels, “If by jazzing up the ‘protima’ and the entire celebration mode, one can manage to attract more people, so be it. In these cynical and frighteningly self-absorbed times, it is at least a forced engagement with a deity one frequently tends to ignore, neglect, forget, overlook, and avoid—shamelessly rushing for help only when one's arse is on fire!”

The Modern Puja Experience

At the end of the day, everything considered, Puja 2024 has to be 'contextualized' in the environment, age, and times we live in. Today, the Puja celebration is hardly perceived as a religious festival but a full-on celebration of culture, food, entertainment, bonding, commercialization, and branding. This has only elevated it to a national level, with celebrity endorsements, big sponsors, top artists, and international cuisine glamorously embellishing the occasion.

From Mughlai, Kobiraji to Mach Bhaja, from hard rock, Bollywood anthems, Bangla pop to Rabindra Sangeet, from dhuti, Punjabi, designer dare-to-bare flesh-flashing outfits—Pujas today are a platform popularly perceived as a carnival, mela, and ramp show! A high-decibel, high-profile, pan-India festival, Pujas offer something for everybody. To try to deconstruct it and figure out whether it’s really a religious ceremony, festival, event, hip n' hot happening, showbiz, or a big, fat spirituality bazaar is to attempt hara-kiri in very slow motion.

Conclusion: Celebrate and Enjoy!

So, as we get into the Puja 2024 fever, the best thing to do is (as the hip-hop Tollywood movie/chartbuster invites us to do) just chill and chant: DURGA MAI KI JAI!! HAPPY PUJA, GUYS!