Why all Durga pandals in West Bengal are playing the same music
But why is the government involved in promoting the album?
If you are missing your favourite singers and their songs in the puja pandals this year, blame it on chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her new puja album — Roudrochhaya (light and shade).
I am sharing with all of you the new pujo song, penned and composed by me, and sung by Indranil and Lopamudra. Enjoy listening and Happy Puja >> https://t.co/hr5Ik6slqi
— Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) October 12, 2018
The puja committees are playing the album throughout the day, obviously to keep the local Trinamool Congress leaders and their henchmen in good humour. Also because there is an unwritten diktat, since the albums were distributed by the local police stations.
A club member of a puja committee in South Kolkata was recounting his experiences of receiving the album.
It was well past 11pm. The man, secretary of the committee, was about to go to bed when he got a call from the police station: the officer-in-charge wanted to meet him on an important matter.
Flustered, he came down hurriedly with the most horrifying apprehensions clouding his mind. However, the meeting turned out to be something beyond imagination.
The officer-in-charge, in all helplessness, had come with several copies of the chief minister’s puja album with a request to play them. Asked if it was mandatory to play or not, the police rolled the ball on the club’s court: “Play it or throw it. We have been asked to distribute and we are doing it.”
Seven songs, some related to puja, some not, all penned and composed by Mamata, were blaring from the pandals. No one knows whether it’s mandatory to play this particular album, but who would dare?
The albums have followed the dole of Rs 10,000 Mamata distributed to some 28,000-odd puja committees. No wonder, the beneficiaries, for all right reasons, are not taking any chances.
But why is the government involved in promoting the album?
Political analyst Biswanath Chakrabarty chuckled, “Perhaps, this was a puja gift from the chief minister apart from the dole.”
Jokes apart, playing the songs will signify the control the chief minister and her party have over the locality.
“And depending on that, the local party boys will get a preliminary idea as to where they would have to slog to ensure allegiance,” said a party MLA on conditions of anonymity.
But what the party leaders are failing to understand is that winning allegiance by force may not necessarily translate into votes at the ballot boxes, given the condition of free and fair polls.
In 2009, when the winds of change were sweeping Bengal, with Mamata Banerjee as the Opposition leader, a popular slogan was doing the rounds — chup-chaap/ phule chhap (vote for the flower symbol silently).
The pressure-tactics, violence, arm-twisting and muscle flexing by the-then ruling Left parties were in vain as people came out in an unprecedented number and cast their votes to ring in political change in 2011
So apparently, huge Mamata cut-outs, campaign of government’s social welfare schemes on bill boards and hoardings of puja pandals and of course, the microphones blaring Mamata’s Roudrochhaya throughout the day may just end up as a grey zone of half truths, an area of half-light-half-shade, reflecting little and perhaps hiding all.
Since the government is giving away Biswa Bangla Sharad Samman awards to best puja organisers in different categories, it is prudent to tune into Mamata’s songs to draw the attention of judges.
After all, the judges are handpicked by the government, celebrities and intellectuals close to the Trinamool Congress.
Whatever be the theory, as far as memory stretches, this is perhaps the first time that all pandals are tuning into the songs that Mamata wrote and composed. One is missing the variety in music — the mellifluous notes of Lata, the romantic numbers from Kishore Kumar, Bismillah’s shehenai, the rap, the rock-n-roll.
There is no diversity.
The pandals, despite the multiplicity and plurality of themes are united in their theme song: Mamata’s album. Apart from Mamata, political leaders of other parties are also trying to promote their line of thinking and their approach to life, food and festival by putting up stalls within the puja compound.
Durga Puja this year has seen a sharp political division, courtesy the 2019 general elections.
While the ruling party has left its imprint on a majority of the puja clubs and committees through distribution of doles, the BJP, coming up as the principal opposition party, is also leaving their mark by organising book stalls, health camps and volunteers for crowd management.
The Trinamool Congress, reluctant to leave any political space for its opponents, has refused saffron influences in the celebrations.
BJP state president, Dilip Ghosh, scheduled to inaugurate some pujas in the city, was refused permission by the police. Hence, he was restricted to the districts. But, the BJP and RSS are planning a big show on the final day of the puja — dashami or the day for immersion of Durga idol.
Since it happens to be the foundation day of the RSS, they will ensure the day belongs to the saffron party with only saffron colours filling up every space of the state.
No ‘roudrochhaya’ or hide-and-seek of light and darkness or light and shade — only saffron.
(Courtesy of Mail Today)