Day after deluge, Kolkata struggles to stay afloat

In the annual cultural calendar of Kolkata, Durga Puja sits right at the top. Preparations for the autumnal festival begin in the early summer monthsas artisans begin crafting idols from fistfuls of clay and organisers start hunting for sponsors and workers to erect their mega street spectacles. As the auspicious dates draw near, the city is ‘wrapped in an envelope of bamboo barricades, glittering electronic archways, and hundreds of makeshift fast food stalls, Large organisers vie with each other for advertiser space, as do decades-old hoardings and new electronic screens. The police issue detailed traffic advisories, newspapers print guides and timings of communal rituals, politicians make lists of pujas to inaugurate, and droves of young people return to a city now seen as a poorer cousin to India’s biggest metropolises.

- Joydeep Thakur

A bus plies on a waterlogged road in Kolkata on Wednesday.

(REUTERS)

A six-hour-spell of torrential rainfall in the early hours of Tuesday put paid to all that.

The downpour, the heaviest in nearly four decades, inundated Kolkata and its outskirts and Killed Il people. It turned arterial roads into rivers, snapped Metro and local train services on Tuesday, and damaged some of Kolkata's most famous outdoor puja pandals. It even made two crocodiles stray from their enclosure at the Kolkata zoo, before officials scrambled to put them back an hour later.

At the time of going to print, prominent neighbourhoods in Kolkata such as Ballygunge, Salt Lake, Patuli, Santoshpur and pockets of north and central parts of the city were still wading in deep water. Property worth crores has been destroyed. Hundreds of cars and other vehicles parked on the roads were submerged. In one of Asia's largest open-air book markets at College Street, potential losses ran into crores as tattered books and soiled documents were seen strewn on the road.

As Kolkata attempted to limp back to normal on Wednesday, it was clear that the deluge had dampened the festive spirit that imbues the city with cheer during its favourite week of the year.

And more rain was likely on its way.

Durga Puja celebrations in Kolkata first gained popularity in the 18th century, when it first started to slip out of the grip of aristocratic households. As colonial Calcutta swelled with merchants, professionals, and clerks, the worship of Durga escaped the courtyards of the wealthy into large community, or barowari, pujas. Modernity too lentits hand. The rise of printing presses spread devotional songs and images, while skilled artisans in Kumartuli etched idols each year. The freedom movement used the pujas asa rallying point for mass contact.