Three Days

Three Days

They are impossible to ignore. The reverberating beats of the least known yet most haunting drums in the world. The incandescent and shimmering air, the faintest scent of jasmine, the wisps of smoky incense, and a wistful mix of joy, hope, despair and loneliness. The smoke filled air as beautiful women dressed in their best, dance their welcome to Ma, as she visits her home here on earth, their smiles shy but knowing. The air is charged with energy and with a strange kind of love and heartfelt prayer and a fierce devotion, that which only Ma Durga can inspire.

Prayer. Such a private doing yet for those three days every year it is all about the collective … all about the soft pull of a shared prayer, such power and and such quiet depth in that force.

As one of the most evocative songs written to celebrate the occasion narrates “she stays for a mere three days after all”, capturing the joy and the longing in the moment. Joy at having a loved one near, with the knowledge that they will be gone before you know it, leaving behind memories and a long, long wait until the next time. “Come back again next year, I say, oh Ma.”

These fleeting days of her visit mean many things to many people, as they do to me. Family first. celebration, creative juices flowing as we compose, practise and prepare for stage performances, the smell of incense and flowers and sindoor, the sights and smells of luchi, Alur dom and chop, the pandal hopping and turning up our noses at the decorations elsewhere “nah, not half as nice as our Protima “.

Pujo meant all of these and more. Yet, to me, the feeling of Pujo is inextricably wrapped around the complex threads of friendship. Friendships so deeply formed when we did not even know we were creating bonds … we were just hanging out. Love that happened when we were busy giggling, laughing, sharing secrets and sweets and clothes and crushes. Sisterhood that was seeping in when we were making up names for boys we liked, trading hair styles, competing in singing contests and begging our parents for sleepovers.

We all were of a similar age, had younger pesky and much loved siblings, we were driven and hungry and largely obedient. We were fiercely independent but in need of each other. We fought, argued, cried bitter tears, were cold to one another and always got back together in the end. Others came and went, at the end it was always the four of us. Some would say, we were alike. But oh so different, and yet the same.

I cannot look back on my childhood and remember a day of Pujo without these threads, there is a not a scene that does not include the sounds of their not so gentle laughter or the sight of one of them out of the corner of my eye. We waited all year for those three days and when they came, we grasped them with four pairs of hands and didn’t let go. Did we think those Pujos would last for ever? Yes, I think we did.

Life happens while you are busy making other plans, they say. And indeed we were busy making other plans. We were going to conquer the world. Soon. And suddenly, before we knew it, our summer of ‘69 days were over. I was the first one to leave for gritty and gutsy Mumbai, then another one of us left and then eventually another. Life intervened. Took over. I suppose you could say we drifted apart. Yet, remained connected. Every once in a while there would be a call, or an email or even a letter. Yes, I belong to a time when we wrote letters to our friends. And sent real cards on birthdays.

Life was still happening, all this time. It shook us up, it changed us, destroyed us and took us higher than we had ever imagined. Some of us went to hell and back, and miraculously survived. And learnt how to pray once again. Perhaps we knew, even though we weren’t speaking often, we had sisters of the heart looking out for us.

And inevitably, eventually, we drifted back to each other. And wondered how we had lost each other a little for a while. And so now we share our daily joys and sorrows and little hurts and little moments of laughter. We laugh at each other and with each other and harangue, push, berate and support each other. When some burdens become too hard to carry, we know there are three others who carry them for us for a while. They are strong enough. Sometimes I can hear their voice in my head whispering “Go for it girl, do it. We are right here”. We pray for each other just as we prayed together to Ma Durga, oh so many years ago. And it is as if no one ever left, and as if we are not literally at four ends of the earth.

But we are. And there are times when that is unbelievably hard to bear. Like these three days, when Shasthi ends, all the way to Navami, where every beat of the Dhaak, every stall selling fish cutlet, the unique smell of the bengal quince leaf with flowers and the smoke of the Dhunichi, the murmured strands of the Ashtami Anjali prayer, brings back memories so sharp I can taste them on my tongue.

And I can see them, so clearly. Four young girls, dressed in their new Pujo clothes, gracefully, in unision, hard at work at the final dance rehearsal behind the makeshift stage at the Pandal. It’s the third day of the three, and performance is tonight. The air vibrates with their fire, their prayers and hopes and dreams, their love and friendship, their secrets and yet unknown desires. What does life hold for them, one might ask? Will they conquer the world, you ask? You know what? I think, they just might, I say. They just might. Together.