Disneyland, Thailand Buddhist temple, besides ancient temples are planted to design this small civic town to lure the crowd during the Saraswati Puja.
This small but ancient town incidentally is the birthplace of community pujas in Bengal where more than 150 Saraswati Pujas, worshipping the goddess of education, are arranged and some of the community pujas are centuries old.
“In 1740, Guptipara first witnessed the magnificent vibrancy of community pujas when a Saraswati Puja was organized by the local residents,” said Swapan Kumar Thakur, a researcher on regional history and anthropology in Burdwan.
He said, “We’ve gathered from the Volume-II of 1818 AD descriptions of ‘The Hindu’, a comprehensive book of history by William Carey’s associate William Wards that the former Burdwan Maharajas, especially after Chitra Sen, a grant of Rs 15,000 was allocated annually for the community Saraswati Pujas and Kalna being the second capital of the Maharajas, located beside the Ganga, became the maximum recipient of the grant, showcasing the maximum number of Saraswati Pujas.”
Though no grant like the community Durga Pujas is forwarded by the state for the community Saraswati Pujas, according to Debaprasad Bag, MLA, Kalna, “Has almost touched 160 in number this year as town’s adjacent localities like Hat Kalna, Rameswarpur have joined the celebration queue with much more enthusiasm and dedication as this happens to be the most gorgeous festival of the town.” Bag has been assigned as the president of the central committee set up by the local administration to supervise the crowded pujas, where millions of pandal hoppers throng during the seven days.
The prominent pujas have estimated budgets of Rs 30-40 lakh with giant pandals. This year, the theme-based pandals have commanded a higher price with illuminations from Chandernagore, Hooghly. “Kalna pujas altogether mobilized business worth Rs 100cr this time. We’ve installed adequate CCTV cameras for surveillance,” claimed Tapan Porel, vice-chairman of the Kalna Municipality.
Puja organizers like Raju Saha, Shankar Haldar, Pratap Dutta, Shubhrasuchi Das said, “Like Kartik Puja for Katwa, Saraswati Puja has become our hallmark.”