Mamata’s favourite hues for Durga

KOLKATA: The pink city of Jaipur will turn blue and white this Puja. Not even divine intervention can change this because the same fate awaits the goddess herself.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s favourite colours — which now adorn anything from flyovers to tree trunks in ‘beautified’ Kolkata — will be the theme of a Puja in her Bhowanipore assembly constituency that will recreate Jaipur, though not in pink.The idol of Goddess Durga at the Bhowanipore 75 Pally Puja patronized by Trinamool Congress leaders Saugata Roy and Madan Mitra will also be draped in blue and white, as will the front walls of 10 houses on either side of Debendra Ghosh Road leading to the pandal. Hoardings advertising the Puja’s theme, ‘Nil Sada e tukro Bhowanipore’, have been put up at the Moulali intersection and other key crossings.
The paintbrush-wielding beautification brigade has dabbed blue and white on flyovers, road dividers, boulevards, lamp-posts, pavements, parks and even tree trunks in the 15 months that the new government has been in power, keen to turn greying, stoical Kolkata into a vibrant, sprightly London. The AJC Bose Road flyover, Park Circus Bridge No. 4 and traffic islands in Salt Lake are glaring instances of this makeover.
Now, as the city prepares for its second Puja after ‘poribartan’, a blue-and-white drape has been prepared for the devi, too.
Madan Mitra, the state’s sports and transport minister who is also this Puja committee’s president, said the colours had been chosen by artist Mintu Pal. “It is true that the CM wants the city to adorn blue and white. The artist also happens to like these colours. We didn’t impose the idea on him,” Mitra said.
Pal, though, added, “Our CM has thought of turning the city blue and white. My idea stems from that thought and seeks to instil the feeling in people that this is the kind of city they are about to get.”
The pandal, near Jadu Babu’s Bazaar, will house a replica of the Gobinda temple in Rajasthan. Some blue and white columns of fabric replicating those in Jaipur have already come up. This is, however, not the first instance of houses being around a pandal being painted in the Puja’s theme colours — Badamtala Ashar Sangha on Rash Behari Avenue did the same a few years ago.
Pal said the idol, made of clay and fabric, will have the appearance of white stone with a shade of blue. The Puja’s budget is Rs 20 lakh, organizer Malay Dey said.