Your First Durga Puja: A Guide for People Who Have Never Been

Every autumn, somewhere between late September and mid-October, a few hundred people gather in a school hall in Orange County and do something that has been done in Bengal for roughly four hundred years. There is a clay idol at one end. There is a priest. There is an enormous amount of food. And there is, reliably, at least one person standing near the door who has no idea what is going on and is slightly worried they are intruding.

If that last person is you — welcome. This post is for you.

The short version

Durga Puja is the largest festival of the Bengali year. It is open to the public. You do not need to be Bengali, Hindu, invited, or a member of anything. You will be fed. Nobody will test you.

That is genuinely the whole answer. The rest of this is detail, in case you like knowing what you are walking into.

What the festival is actually about

Durga is a goddess, and the story is a good one: the gods, unable to defeat a buffalo demon named Mahishasura, pooled their powers to create a warrior who could. She is usually depicted mid-victory — ten arms, each holding a different god's weapon, a lion at her side, the demon at her feet.

But that is only half of what the festival means to the people celebrating it, and arguably the less important half. The other half is domestic. Durga is also a married daughter coming home to her parents for a few days each year, bringing her children with her. The entire emotional shape of the festival follows that: mounting excitement before she arrives, four days of being unable to quite believe she is here, and then a genuinely sad farewell.

This is why Bengalis get sentimental about Durga Puja in a way that surprises people who expect a religious festival to feel religious. For many of us it is closer to what Christmas is in a secular household — the rituals are real and observed properly, and the actual feeling is about family, food, and the people who are not there anymore.

The five days, roughly

Shashthi opens the festival. The goddess is welcomed and her face is unveiled — until this moment it has been covered.

Saptami, Ashtami and Navami are the three main days. Each has its own rituals. Ashtami is the one most families treat as the centre of it: new clothes, the largest crowd, and anjali — the flower offering, made standing, in bare feet, repeating Sanskrit after the priest that most people do not fully understand and say anyway.

Dashami ends it. The married women perform sindoor khela, smearing each other with vermilion powder until everyone is red-faced and laughing. The goddess is bid farewell. People embrace and say Shubho Bijoya. Somebody always cries. Then there are sweets, and it is over for a year.

Sanhoti compresses this into a weekend, because Orange County has jobs and school runs and Bengal does not. The shape survives the compression.

What actually happens on the day

A priest conducts the rituals in Sanskrit. At Sanhoti he explains what he is doing in Bengali as he goes, which is more than you get in a lot of places — and if you ask someone nearby what is happening, you will get an answer, possibly a long one.

Anjali happens in the morning and around midday. If you want to take part, join the queue and copy what the person in front of you does. If you would rather watch, stand at the side. Both are completely normal.

Meanwhile, more or less continuously, there is a cultural programme: children's dance and recitation, Rabindra Sangeet, and most years a headline performance from a professional singer flown in from Kolkata or Mumbai. Some of the names we have hosted are household ones in Bengali homes.

The food, which is not a side note

Do not eat before you come.

Bhog is served after the midday puja — food offered to the goddess first and then distributed to everyone present. The classic combination is khichuri (rice and lentils cooked together with ghee and whole spices), labra (a mixed vegetable dish), a tomato chutney, and payesh to finish. It is strictly vegetarian, cooked without onion or garlic, made in vats by volunteers who started at six in the morning, and it is free.

Evening food is a different proposition — biriyani, fish, mutton, and Bengali sweets. There is usually a charge for this, which covers what it cost to make.

Vegetarian options are always available. The full menu goes up on the event page in advance, so you can check before you come rather than discovering your options at the counter.

Practical questions people actually ask

What do I wear? Whatever you would wear to a nice party. Many people wear Indian clothes — saris, kurtas, panjabis — and many do not. Nobody is checking. Bare feet are required near the idol, so shoes you can slip off easily are a small practical kindness to yourself.

Can I bring my children? Yes, and please do. There will be a lot of other children, mostly unsupervised, having a better time than the adults.

Can I take photographs? Yes. Ask before photographing someone directly, as you would anywhere.

Do I need to bring anything? No. If you want to make an offering you can, but nobody expects it.

Is there a charge? The puja itself is free. Evening meals and the concert may be ticketed to cover costs. Nobody is turned away from the puja.

I am not Hindu. Is it disrespectful for me to attend? No. Durga Puja in the diaspora is a public cultural festival, and it always has been — in Kolkata, the crowds moving between pandals include people of every faith and none. Coming with curiosity and reasonable manners is all that is asked.

Why any of this happens in California

There is a particular thing that occurs to people who emigrate, usually around the time their children start speaking English better than their mother tongue: the realisation that a culture is not transmitted automatically. It has to be actively carried.

Sanhoti exists because a group of families in Orange County decided to carry it. That means a committee arguing about venue deposits in March, a WhatsApp group of forty people coordinating who is bringing what in September, and someone's uncle driving to Los Angeles at dawn for the fish. It is not effortless and it is not a performance for outsiders. It is a community keeping something alive for its own children.

Which is exactly why visitors are welcome. A tradition that only survives behind a closed door has not really survived.

Come along

Our next Durga Puja is listed on the events page with confirmed dates, venue and the published menu. If you would like someone to look out for you when you arrive — genuinely, this is a normal thing to ask — send us a note through the contact page and we will arrange it.

Shubho Sharodiya.