Kolkata’s Durga Puja is one of the most beautiful festivals in the country. Every year, Durga Puja organisers go to great lengths to come up with fresh concepts that draw visitors from all over the world. This year, the organisers of 66 Pally Durga Puja in Kolkata’s Rash Behari Avenue have defied a century-old stereotype by bringing in female priests to perform all of the rites.
https://twitter.com/satyaki_sngupta/status/1447551360933584910?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw66 Pally’s theme for this year’s Durga Puja is ‘Mayer Haate Mayer Abahon’, roughly translated to Mother goddess will be worshipped by mothers.
After the puja committee’s veteran male priest passed away at the end of last year, four women, Nandini Bhowmik, Ruma Roy, Seymanti Banerjee, and Paulomi Chakraborty, were roped in to conduct this year’s puja.
Since only males have been allowed to invoke Goddess Durga for years, the organisers’ unique concept has turned into a significant crowd puller for this season.
The senior office-bearer of the puja committee, Pradyuna Mukherjee said: “four women are all scholars having great command on scriptures, professors in their respective fields, and fit the bill as a worshipper of the goddess in every possible way.”
He further argued: “Don’t women make all the arrangements for conducting puja rituals in household and para puja? If there can be women clay modellers if there can be women organisers, why not women priestesses?”
According to sources, if the priestesses are approved this year, the puja committee would continue the trend next year. It also depends on the willingness of the priestesses to maintain their involvement with the puja.
Unlike traditional priest groups, the all-women priestess group claims to have no lead or head priestess. They want to teach people how to do rituals in accordance with long-standing traditions and encourage other women to travel into areas where they haven’t gone before.