The world is celebrating festivals amid unprecedented circumstances this year. The effect of coronavirus was evident during this Durga Puja and Vijayadashami in the decorations and idols of Durga Maa and Ravana. With Durga Maa bidding us adieu for this year, let us see some unique happenings of Durga Puja.
- Migrant Durga
This super-realistic idol of Durga Maa as a migrant woman was set up by Barisha Club Durga Puja committee in Behala, Kolkata. Maa depicts the plight of the migrant workers, especially migrant women who had to traverse back to their home states, for hundreds of kilometers on foot, after the lockdown was implemented.
2. Durga that never left
As per IANS report, there is a Durga idol in Varanasi which has never been immersed since it was installed by a Bengali family in Durga Badi in Bangali Tola area on ‘Shashthi’. “Dozens of people have tried to move the idol, but failed to do so. People have tried to shift the idol for immersion in the past several years, but all efforts have failed,” IANS quoted Partha Ghosh, a local resident, as saying. The idol made of clay always looks new. Hemant, the fifth-generation member of the family that established the idol told the news agency, “My ancestors apparently saw Maa Durga in their dream and she said that she would not move out. Since then she remains there.”
3. Currency worth Rs 1 crore decorated this Maa
During Dussehra, the Kanyaka Parameswari Goddess temple in Telangana was decorated with origami flowers made of currency notes valued at more than Rs 1 crore, reported NDTV. Donation by 40-50 devotees led to the creation of garlands and bouquets made of for Rs 1,11,11,111. These decorations were used to decorate a form of Durga- in the Vasavi Kanyaka Parameswari Temple in Telangana’s Gadwal.
4. Maa killing ‘Coronasura’
The artist imagined Maa Durga as a doctor killing a coronavirus-shaped Mahishasur-‘Coronasur’, with a long syringe. Her four children were also imagined as essential workers fighting COVID-19. A Facebook user wrote that the idol was created by sculptor Jiten Paul at Siliguri in North Bengal.
