Durga Puja in New York

East Coast Durga Puja Association (ECDPA) is the first Bengali club in North America, which started celebrating Durga Puja in the year 1969 in Manhattan, New York. Later on as most Bengali started living in Queens, puja move to Queens. In the beginning puja used to be in the public schools, later it moved to Gujrati Samaj building. This became the permanent place for celebration of Durga puja.

For many years annual durga puja celebration by ECDPA was the main event of the year for Bengali of New York. It was going on smoothly, then to select the officials of the puja committee a election was proposed.The people who lost the election brought the allegation of election manipulation, and didn't accepted the outcome. Subsequently they formed another committee and named New York Puja Association (NYPA) and started a separate durga puja in the same Gujrati Samaj building on a different weekend.

A group of Bengali of Long Island started another Durga puja in the year 1985.There puja location was at VFW hall,Franklin Square, New York.

In the beginning I was involved with ECDPA, then with NYPA ,I kept close contact with both puja committees and also with Long Island puja committee. In the beginning NYPA had no deity, also not enough funds. I decided to donate and I made the arrangements to get the deity from Kolkata. I got in touch with Mr. Amarnath Ghosh the famous shola shipi of Kumartuli, and ordered the deity. There were a subtle competition between ECDPA and NYPA . NYPA wanted to do something different. Those days puja was done by placing the deity on a platform. There was very minimal effort for decoration. In Asansol I was involved in decoration, so I had some ideas. I wanted to apply those in New York pujas. So I made a plan, discussed with puja committee, formed a team and started working. It was a risky venture, beside me I don't think anyone else fully understood the plan but they offered full co operation and work started with full enthusiasm.

Our combined efforts were very successful.Everyone liked our decoration. And each year I use to come up with new plans . It was lots of fun. Subsequently ECDPA also started to come up with different decoration plan for ECDPA puja.

Gradually Kali puja, Sarswati puja were added to the celebration.  

The begining

Since I am around for a long time in New York I have friends in all New york area puja committee. I usually visit all of them during Durga puja festival, specially if they are in different week ends. And I heard from all different groups the same comments like , we the Bengali of New York are here for a such a long time but we don't have a place of our own. 

During puja I specially like to come and spend time at Gujrati Samaj Puja in the morning when all the ladies helps the priest to make puja arrangement and cut fruits for the puja offering. Decoration team putting finishing touches of their decoration scheme. The place usually not very crowded at that time and all women talks about various subjects ranging from our community affairs, personal events, what going on in Kolkata, world news etc. One topic will always come someone will say, we have to have a place of our own, a temple a place where we can perform our rituals as per panjika etc. Then someone will float a rumor of Gujrati Samaj will not let us rent this place from next year or this building will be taken over by a Muslim organization very soon. Then they will look at us the men group having tea and adda in one corner and will say so many of you are here please do something. Men group will always agree with what ladies are saying, but usually this conversation ends soon and will resume again next year. I felt a sense of responsibility of doing something from this conversations. Also I had a dream of bringing all Bengali community together and have one puja. 

 In one of the meeting of Long Island Sorbajanin Durga Puja committee, few new members wanted to move the puja from VFW hall to a different location. Me and Sankar Bhoumik was given the responsibility to find a suitable new place. Sankar da and myself had big age difference we belong to almost two different generation. But we worked fine together to this common goal. I took Tanima and Sreemanta with me and started looking for a new place, we found few places and in next meeting we presented our findings, soon we realized the older generation members does not want to move the puja from VFW hall. They told us to find a place just to calm down the demands of younger generation of members. 

One day at a social gathering at Pronab Pal and Joyashree Pal's house, this topic came up and few people proposed what about finding a place to build a permanent temple for our community.They told me they are willing to commit financially if I work on this project .We got a paper and pen got every one's name and most of them pledged $2000 for this cause as seed money. Me and Sankarda, Sreemanta and Tanima got very excited. We started searching for place for our temple from next week. Each week end we used to go out ,at this time Dipak Nandi joined us, then Chandan Sinharoy also joined us, we started planning for fund raising. We called a meeting at "Tandoor restaurant" got few commitment. We got more excited. And after seeing many locations finally we liked a place in Baldwin.This was a old Italian restaurant .We liked it mostly for its decor, location and big parking area on the back and price. This time we got many new friends who liked to join us to make our dream a reality. One of them was Devdutta and Sharmista Misra, both of them were very dedicated person. One day we held a marathon calling of all the members of our community for fundraising drive from Debu's house with help of few volunteers. Each week end me, Sreemanta, Dipak and Chandan used to meet different place to discuss our strategy. Dipak was always very good in writing the plans. 

I created a power point presentation of our plan, borrowed a projector from our hospital and then started to do presentation at different gathering. We organized gatherings at VFW Hall, Gujarati Samaj Hall. Me and Srimanto went to Brooklyn to do a presentation at their puja. Pabitra Chowdhury helped us to have the presentation. I did many presentations at pujas in Gujrati Samaj. We got both encouragement and discouragements. I remember at one of our meeting at Gujrati Samaj one person from the audience came to stage and told us that we are taking a very dangerous step.This is going to be a sure failure and since we are handling people money we will end up in jail.We didn't know how to handle him finally Sugata Bagchi helped us to get this person out of the dias.

One day Basanti Mitra a very religious lady and a entrepreneur, invited us to her house to meet few people from the Ananda Mandir of New Jersey. She said we may benefit by talking to these people as we both have the same goal and they are ahead of us, by that time they have the building and land already, and we have only dream. Like any organization Ananda Mandir also going through up and down times. That time they were not doing good ,they were frustrated with the lack of empathy from the community. So they told us since you have not purchased a land yet ,you should think twice before making further progress. This is a very thankless job.

But our energy those days were so high we totally discarded their advice. We hold all our hand together around a table and Sankarda chanted a slokas - which means no matter what, since we took the pledge, we will go ahead with our project and with God willing we will be a sure success.

My days at a Primary Health Center ,West Bengal,India

After finishing medical school now it is time to get a job. At that time popular option was to take a govt. job. One of our teacher used to say always try to get a govt. job - getting one is difficult but once you get it, loosing your job is more difficult.There was one problem. Since there was a great shortage of doctors in primary health center, govt. made a rule that all doctors have to work in a rural health center for three years. Govt. can do that because medical education in govt. medical colleges are subsidized. Tuition we paid for our medical education in India is an wildest dream for American medical students. Our tuition was 106 rupees for six month. And room charges for the hostel was 12 rupees. Food charges were 65 rupees for a month(lunch and dinner). 

Anyway this mandatory rural health service can be skipped if you know some one higher up in the govt. I was considering what to do then my professor of Surgery spoke me in to joining health center. I was posted to a primary health center in the district of Murshidabad. Population of my health center was about 90% Muslim. The place is located very close to Bangladesh border. I heard during partition this village was in east Pakistan(now Bangladesh) for one day next day it became part of India. From Berhampur we have to take a bus to reach Sadhikhandia. On the road we have to get off the bus as bus need to cross a river, we walked through the river then got in the bus on the other side of the river. In the health center the doctors wife who I will be replacing gave me such a warm welcome, I started feeling little uneasy. Later I learned that doctor was waiting for last five years for a reliever ,many doctors were posted but none of them finally showed up. So when I showed up they can't believe it and the wife so desperate to the leave that village unable to check her emotions. 

I liked the place very much, typical Indian village. People are very friendly and respectful. Only problem was the people goes to sleep very early, the whole village will immerse in silent darkness by 7:30 p.m. and they wakes up very early in the morning. Fresh from college hostel life it was completely opposite over there.There was another doctor in the health center Asimda. One or two year senior to me joined this place few months before me. We get along very well and became friends. According to the village standard I was the light skin color doctor and Asimda was the dark skin color doctor. There was a Dalim tree in front of my quarter and a mango tree in front of Asimda quarter.I was called 'dalimtaler dholo doctor' ( fare skin doctor lives near dalim tree) and Asimda was called ' amtaler kalo doctor'(dark skin doctor who lives under mango tree). 

 I told Asimda I want to do few minor surgeries in this health center ,so if he gets any case let me know.Few days after I joined the Health Center, one afternoon Asimda called me to see a patient, a 25 year old Muslim boy going to get married soon but before that he wanted to get circumcised. Asimda said he knows this family very well and requested me if I can help and save the boy form embarrassment. It was a very easy case to a freshly graduated surgical fellow. It was surprising why a Muslim boy waited this long for get circumcised usually this happens soon after birth.The young man said soon after birth he became very sick so surgery was postponed and then never got done.Without much thought I was excited do the procedure and scheduled the surgery for the next morning.Surgery went very smoothly. Patient was send to bed for few hours with the plan to discharge home in the evening. Around 2 p.m. I got a call to see the patient as he is bleeding heavily from the operated site. I went rushing and surprised to find patient is seating in a pool of blood. I opened the bandage cleaned the wound placed few more stitches, placed the bandage back , very soon the bandage got soaked with blood, I got very nervous called Asimda. He knew what is going on he spoke to the family and said we have to transfer this patient to the capital city Beharampur hospital now arrangements were done.As the ambulance left our health center Asimda called me to his room and told me we did a big mistake, we should have taken more detailed history before doing the case. Apparently soon after the bleeding started the patients older brother came to Asimda and said the reason none of the three bother got circumcision at birth is they have family history of hemophilia. I was dumb found, felt very embarrassed. The boy got blood transfusions at Beharampur hospital and returned home after a week and told everyone the new health center doctor cut a wrong vein causing him to bleed so much.Thus my plan of doing few procedures in this health center to serve these undeserved people was put on hold for the time being. 

 Since both of us were bachelor and nothing else to do so we used to work at the health center all day, became very popular in that area. One day a old man came with severe burns of her grand daughter,I said this can not be treated here she should get transferred to Berhampur otherwise she will not survive. Like most of the village people this old man is very afraid of big city. He told me you please do whatever you can I am not going to take her to Berhampur ,if she dies ,that's ok. with limited supply of medicine and I.V fluids I tried my best and miraculously the young girl survived but she was left with bad scars from the burns in her leg and abdomen. Family was very happy. When the girl got better one day she asked me if I can do anything about the scars in her leg. I said I can give a try , she was very pleased. One day I went to Berhampur , the doctors at that hospital are well known to me, got some basic instruments and I did skin grafting on this girl in the health center. Family and the whole village celebrated my success very big way, I was very happy. Since these people never got exposed to antibiotics or any other medication in their life, medicine does wonders.Treating them is always a pleasure. Grandfather was in tears he told me, I have no way to pay you anything but you have to agree to accept a chicken every week, he never missed his promise till my last day of stay in this village.

Fundraising for New York Kali Mandir

Now we have selected the location and liked the building and price wise reasonable($575,000). But problem is at this point we don't have enough fund. With our various fund raising events and personal donations we were able to raise $187,000. We went to bank but since New York Kali Mandir has no credit history bank declined to consider us for mortgage, only way to do this is to have personal guarantee. Since future of this effort was very uncertain our present members were hesitant to sign for personal guarantee. So now the way it stands we have to collect a fund of $600,000 approx. and buy this property with cash. We thought that is impossible and we will not be able to purchase the place and got very disheartened.

One day Biswajit Chakraborty called, he is very helpful person,always there for any community cause and always has new ideas. He told me I should call a person name Dilip Chakraborty. He told me very highly about Dilip Chakraborty and said he is a philanthropic by nature and he will be able to get the required fund. I don't believe what Biswajeet said but thought let me Call Mr. Chakroborty and see what he has to say. That evening I called him introduced myself had long very cordial talk, most encouraging thing was he sounded he can come with that amount of money but he has to talk to few of his friends.I got very much electrified, started calling him each evening and wanted to meet him in person.

I invited him to meet us at the property site very next week, then we went to a restaurant for discussion. He liked the place and said he will get back to us after talking to his friends.

Then Mr. Dilip Chakroborty informed us there will be a meeting at Dhrubo and Banani Dutta's house and we will meet his friends who are willing to lend $100,000 each to help us to buy the temple. And he said Dhrubo and Banani Dutta will lend us $100,000.I could not sleep at night with the excitement ,I never thought this is possible. We had a very cordial meeting at Dhrubo Dutta and Banani Dutta's house we met with the other family Mr Buddhadev and Kumkum Majumder who will be our third big lender.Our Fourth lender Mr Bharat bhai Patel didn't come, but he told Mr. Dilip Chakroborty that he will lend us $100,000.

We had a big celebration feast on that day, Banani treated all guest with very delicious home cooked foods and sweets.

my childhood

I was born in Asansol,district Burdwan in the state of West Bengal. When I was four year old we moved to Kurseong in the Dist of Darjeeling. My father was govt. officer and had a transferable job. He loved mountains,so he opted for this posting.Kurseong was a beautiful little town in the lap of Himalayan range. Soon after we moved in, an old devoted bengali lady known as Sudhadi, was trying to open a school for little bengali boys. Since there were very few Bengali families in the town ,she went to door to door to find student for her school. Unable to refuse her, my mother agreed to send me to her school. School was located very close to our house ,my transportation to and from the school was on the lap of our servant.
We were approx six to eight student in our class. We were asked to pick up cut out of different bengali alphabets from a box ,if we do it correctly, we will get a candy as a prize. In the noon time I used fall sleep.Sudhadi will very gently carry me to her very clean and well decorated room, she will place me in the center of her soft white bed. Even today if I close my eye I can view that white soft bed.

I was chubby,local people used call me mote babu(fat boy).Our next door neighbour had two young girls,they loved to play ,with me, I was their toy doll.They used to dress me like a little girl with make up, I used to enjoy all there attention.

My brother and sister used go to junior school,which was quite far from our house, so after two year we moved to house close to their school ,and I also got admitted to their school.

Our house was very beautiful,located on a mountain surrounded by tea garden,form our veranda we had a nice view of balasun river and Kanchenjunga mountain range. Owner of our house was a retired military major.We used share the house with him, he was a plant lover, we had a beautiful garden around our house.We had a wind rooster on our roof ,that was how people will find our house.There were only few bengali families in Kurseong those days. Durga puja was celebrated with very little enthusiasm. Mom used to tell us stories about how big way puja is done in Asansol/Kolkata.We used to go to a T.B. Sanatorium to see Durga puja, it was high in the a hill, we have to climb lots of stares. Each year they had same decoration, images will seat in between the cotton mountain, people will say those are used cotton of the patients. I used to think if they give me a chance I can do the decoration different ways.The people over there had a very lonely life, families used to drop them off when they got the disease tuberculosis, then after recovery many times family will not come to take them back ,so these cured patients will stay at that place as a volunteer workers and they are the one who used to organize the puja. This is only time outside people will come to visit them. They were very courteous always smiling with some strange kind of sadness underneath. They used give us 'prosad' of cut fruits from God's offering, we will take them, but we knew we are not supposed to eat them. Everyone will come out of the building and through them in a jungle, which create a big pile. I remember one time I was throwing them in the jungle and turned an saw the smiling sad face of the person who gave that to us few minutes ago.People who handled the prosad are cured tuberculosis patient but no body believed them.

a place for pujas

Since majority people of our community lived in Queens. Durga puja celebration moved from Manhattan to Queens.The problem was to find a hall. All schools has a auditoriam and halls,so very ideal for pujas. But the problem was they not supposed to use for any religious purpose,that was the state law. So we changed the name , we told them we want the hall to celebrate our 'Autum Festival'. School usually encourages diverse ethinic activity, so now they agreed to let us rent the place. But there was problem. They had a complain we don't clean the place properly after our use , they were not happy with our cleaning job. Our smelly food was a factor.So after few times they declined our request to rent the hall. And we moved to another school, we were concerned very soon we will run out of available schools.. So we promised ourself we will more careful this time, but we failed again in our cleanliness. Some people were very creative in finding a new hall each time we needed.

There was another problem. It is said , 'if there are two bengalis , there will be a club, if there four, there will be a another club.' As much as we loved to meet our own people in these social gatherings in the name of Durga puja etc. Soon we developed disliking among ourselves also. One year on the second day of Durga puja , someone told the school authority, what we are doing is not a 'Autum Festival', its a religious event. So in the middle of the puja we got a notice from school authority, immediately we have to leave the place, those days we were little fearful to fight with authority forcefully. And we moved to someone's garage to complete our puja rituals.

To find a place to practice our religious and social activities was a problem for all Indian/Asian communities. A group of gujratis came for our rescue, they saw the opartunity. Few of them together bought a abondoned pottato storage place, did some renovation to make a hall, and named it 'Gujrati Samaj building'. This solved our problem. This was a tremendous service to our community.

Since then for years this place became a permanent address for celebration of many events , by our Indian community.

coming to America

Few months after I reached to America, I was invited to go to a meeting of Bengali community. Name of the person who hosting the meeting is Jahar Bhattacharya, agenda how to build a community center/temple for bengali in New York. I was very surprised to see so many Bengali in one room. Before this I had no idea that so many Bengali lived in New York. Subsequently I saw more Bengali when I went to Durga puja celebration at Manhattan.This helped me a lot to get over the homesickness I was suffering from since I left Kolkata.

Soon after my arrival to New York I was dying to see Manhattan . I heard so many stories about the place. I wanted to visit the place called Times Square.
So with lots of instructions and caution notes from my well wishers one day I took no. 7 subway to Manhattan.The subway station I felt very heartless, so much steel and metallic noises I didn't like. Peoples were not very friendly either.Manhattan really took my breath out . So many tall building so close to each other I never seen before. I felt very small. It took me a while to get used to this tall buildings, in times Square I saw those adult stores. My ears got red ,I felt nervous,scared if some one may see me near this place. Knowing very well all people I know lives on the other side of the world.
 

When I left for America from Dumdum airport(now they call it Netaji Subhash Ch. Bose international airport) ,that was my first plane ride. I was so excited,fortunately got a window seat. Felt sad as my city got gradually small then disappeared under the clouds. In Delhi I have change plan ,this time it was bigger plane Boeing 735. Again I got a window seat . I was tired fell sleep then with a jerking suddenly I woke up. It was early morning. Outside view was so amazing I was thrilled. Our plane is gliding over layers of pink clouds. Again i felt sadness I wanted my mom,dad,my brother, sisters to share this beauty with me.