How Durga Puja proved that Kolkata’s spirit never sinks

The City of Joy transformed its worst floods in four decades into its most triumphant Puja — with devotion and resilience

- SUNDEEP BHUTORIA

There are cities that bend under pressure, and then there is Kolkata — a city that has made an art form of standing tall precisely when the odds are stacked against it.

This year, as Durga Puja celebrations unfolded across Bengal, with Kolkata as the epicentre, something extraordinary happened. Kolkata celebrated not despite calamity, but almost in defiance of it, exuding resilience as much as festive fervour.

Only days before the first dhaak beats would echo through its lanes, Kolkata had endured its heaviest rainfall in nearly four decades. Ten lives were lost. Roads vanished beneath churning water. Trains ground toa halt. Families waded through waist-deep floods, unsure whether their most cherished festival would survive nature's fury. For one fleeting, unthinkable moment, it seemed Durga Puja itself might drown.

Despair, though, has never had the lost word in Kol-kata.

THE GODDESS ARRIVES ON TIME

The moment the skies cleared, the city surged back with astonishing energy. Pandals threatened by waterlogging were restored overnight — not tentatively, but with fierce determination. Clay idols that seemed lost were carefully salvaged byartisans who understand that the Goddess is fashioned not merely from straw and clay, but from devotion itself. Organising committees that had watched their months of preparation teeter oncollapse simply refused to let it happen. They worked through exhaustion and uncertainty, and delivered something miraculous: a Puja bigger, brighter, and more dazzling than ever before.