Kolkata just celebrated its biggest annual festival Durga Puja when the ten-armed Goddess Durga visits her earthly home. As usual there were huge crowds, bright lights, great art. But this year something felt a little muted.
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata.
At a Durga Puja in Bagha Jatin in south Kolkata one of the organisers said he overheard a little boy telling his mother “Can we go see the Durga here?” His mother said “Don’t you know we are not seeing Durgas this year because of the R G Kar incident?” “Oh,” said the boy. “Can I have ice cream instead?”
The R G Kar incident is the rape and murder of a junior doctor at her own hospital, the R G Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata on August 9. Since then protest marches, human chains and candlelight vigils have rocked the city daily. Junior doctors are threatening to fast to death. Durga Puja, the city’s biggest street art event has come face to face with the biggest street protests Kolkata has seen in years.
PROTEST
Artist Sushanta Paul says had the R G Kar incident happened earlier its impact on the art might have been different. By August he was neck deep in work on mammoth installations, one spread over 35000 square feet. But the issue crept in subconsciously says Paul.
SP1: Khub subconsciously hoyto kaajer modhye diye beriyeche
For example at his Tala Prataya installation his Durga has no body. Her life force is symbolized by flickering candles like the ones used in the candlelight vigils for justice. The installation feels like a black hole. Some might read this as my protest he says even though its coincidence.
SP2: Purotai black hole.Apnar money hotey paare eta amaar protibaad. Kintu eta coincidence. This is very coincidence.
Visual artist Sanatan Dinda says of course the tragedy affected him. Artists don't work in ivory towers.
DINDA1: Santan dinda chhoni aanku Aami gojodonter minaret boshe chhobi aanki na, aami somajer kotha boli
He says he made some improvisations to the Durgas he was sculpting. The mother goddess he sculpted looks more fierce than maternal. The lion she normally rides is springing out of her chest. Each of her ten arms holds a spear to slay evil.
Dinda’s paintings around the installation, in stark red black and white, pay homage to Picasso’s anti war masterpiece Guernica.
Art as protest is not new. Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Defacement memorialising the 1983 death, at the hands of the police, of a man allegedly writing graffiti in the New York subway, found new resonance during the Black Lives Matter movement. Banksy, Jenny Holzer, Diego Rivera have all used public art to make political points.
But Durga Puja isn’t just public art. Its a religious festival, a major driver of the state’s economy. A British Council commissioned report found the total economic worth of Durga Puja in 2019 was over $4.5 billion.With so much at stake the neighbourhood clubs organising pujas have to be careful. They get financial grants from the government. They have to work with police on permits and traffic control.
“But as a women-led women-run club we also wanted to make a point,” says Mousumi Dutta, president of the Arjunpur Amra Sabai Club.
MD1: Amader ei club committee mohila, pujo kori mohila mile
Their theme this year was Discrimination. The artist used the Constitution of India and its Articles promising equality as the backdrop to the Goddess while local actors enacted the gap between the promise of the Constitution and reality through street theatre.
ACTING:
Though the theme had been decided earlier, the tragedy gave it a different urgency. “We are calling this Durga Puja a pledge not a festival” says Dutta. “Our pledge to create a world where we don't have to keep coming out onto the streets to demand justice.”
MD2: Amra ustob bole maanchi na, sonkolpo hishebe ma-ke dekhachi.
While some are bringing the mood of protest into their Durga Puja art, others are bringing protest art to their Durga Puja. Chandreyee Chatterjee’s family has been celebrating Durga Puja at their home in Kolkata for 16 years. Chatterjee also participated in many of the street protests.
PRAYERS
They still had a Durga Puja this year but with a difference. just the rituals.
Minus the usual dancing and merrymaking says Chatterjee
CC1: Any other thing that comes under the heading of celebration is being done away with this year
She also had a little badge made. It shows a hand grasping a flaming torch. Underneath in Bengali are the words “We want justice.” Its her way to keep the issue alive.
CC2: There hasn't been any solution. Nothing has changed as yet. And there's a long, long way to go.
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata.