A festivity of food

In less than two weeks from now, the Bengali community’s festivities will reach fever pitch. Durga Pujo, celebrated every year around this time globally, is no longer one community’s affair — it is the homecoming of the mother for one and for all.

One of this week-long celebration’s biggest joys comes in its community experience with food at its epicentre. While the City of Joy is understandably the most boisterous, our very own National Capital Region also has vibrant celebrations all around. In each of them, the central offering comes through numerous stalls to eat from.

Before that, though, the experience starts with bhog — the community food service offered in the name of Durga, the mother. Opened and offered to all, the bhog experience takes us back to our very roots each year. It is food in its most rustic, most inclusive and most enchanting form.

The menus are hardly complicated — the first three days of Pujo see most communities serve an all-vegetarian affair. Most offerings lean on traditional Bengali fare — including one bhaja (fritters), a dal, ,and end with sweet accompaniments. While this is the average template, the only real rule is that the meals are for everyone — without any discrimination.

Every year, the bhog at a Durga Pujo celebration I am closely associated with reminds me of how each festival holds vastly different meanings for people across the social hierarchy — and how there are still times when we forget our differences and come together. The food at the festivities reflect this too.

For instance, you’ll typically find the longest queues in front of makeshift stalls selling rolls. As evening turns to night, the rolls give way to plates of biryani — or even alternate cuisines such as Delhi’s butter chicken, or servings of a wide variety of dosas. Yet, here too, you notice the community ethos — almost every item is priced affordably in most places, and there’s no discrimination to who is served.

In fact, there are mostly disposable plates and cutleries in most of the places serving food — leaving pretensions far behind. There is a nip and a buzz in the air during the festivities — one that even encourages us all to embrace our unity, through so many social divides.

Beyond the socio-cultural commentary at play, what’s also on show is the sheer kaleidoscope of Delhi’s food landscape. The Chittaranjan Park neighbourhood, already a hub for the Bengali community, turns into a culinary epicentre during this time. Well until very late at night, you get the best of Bengal’s snack offerings—chops, cutlets, kabiraji (deep-fried coated chicken), Mughalai parathas (egg-coated, chicken-stuffed parathas) and more.

It’s not just the Bengali cuisine that gets into the limelight. All across town, restaurants of varying cuisines and price brackets step-up their promotional offerings — giving the National Capital Region one of its most vibrant weeks all year round. A simple glimpse at Connaught Place, which buzzes with the festive spirit late into the night, says it all. This is also topped up by experiences that patrons and stalwarts of the Bengali community showcase during Pujo. Sushmita Saha, a development sector professional and resident of CR Park, is taking her keen interest in showcasing the Bengali customs to more communities in the form of food walks this year.

Elaborating on it, Saha said, “My walk will shine a light on the ‘Anondo Mela’ (the fairs of stalls that surround a Pujo) food fairs — a signature affair witnessed only within the Bengali diaspora. This fair marks the beginning of the festival, and brings together multiple narratives such as lost food systems, the exodus of people, kitchen wisdom and generational recipes.”

These walks, which anyone can sign up for, will also showcase niche, seldom-found items cooked by home chefs, which Saha believes will be highly evocative towards thoughts, memories and emotions. “In a way, these walks blend storytelling with numerous connections that we have with food and eating,” she further said.

It is this that sums up the spirit of the festival — going the extra mile to explore lost, hidden, and nearly-forgotten recipes of a community that is otherwise quite vocal and proud of their heritage. Being married to a Bengali, there are still items that I’ve heard of, which are nowhere seen in publicly popular restaurants.

The Pujo therefore becomes a chance to find them again. With an evolving sense of responsibility towards preserving cultures and narratives, this is not just a period of festivity —it is a vital time capsule for a vibrant community.