Durga Puja just being round the corner, CR Park has put its preparation to welcome the Goddess with her four children, in 1st gear. The big grounds of the colony are sporting the look of a “construction- in-progress” with tall bamboo and iron poles heaped up and ready to be erected for the colossal pandals that will be the “earthly home” of the proverbial “daughter of the earth” for 4 days.
Hoardings, banners, standees and glow signs announcing and highlighting the specialities of each Puja, are a common sight across the colony. Puja pandals are vying for each other to enamour the devotees and artists to visit/perform at their venue. Another highlight of the celebrations, is the iconic Saree and handicrafts exhibition that takes place at C R Park Bangiya Samaj premises, just before the Puja celebration commences.
This month long festival showcases designer, traditional and regional sarees representing all parts of the country. Accompanied by equal and more variants in dress materials, jewellery, accessories, handicrafts, and footwear, this exhibition attracts shoppers from across Delhi/NCR , who come and shop to their hearts’ content!
Cultural competitions are the other most significant attractions that draw people every evening to the pandal grounds. Participants from the age of 3 to 80 years, enthusiastically make these month long events, a running success. Evenings become big social gatherings with fast food stalls dotting the ground peripheries, doing brisk business with the hungry office goers, students and homemakes making a bee line for the traditional and mouth watering Bengali and Indianised Chinese snacks on display at all these stalls.
As the days of the celebration approaches, the colony turns into a veritable fortress with numerous police pickets, watch towers and barricades being set up to ramp up the security cover. Police personnel in 100s are deployed at various critical points to man and manage the traffic and crowd that descends on the colony during the festival time. Each Puja security committee is briefed and apprised in detail on the measures that are needed to be taken to ensure appropriate security during the 5 days of festivities.
Each Puja committee holds elaborate meetings to align members with each department and assign tasks and activities to the volunteers and members. Elaborate planning is done to ensure seamless execution of the celebration with minimum hiccups.
Ganesh Chaturthi is celebrated all over Delhi with increasing fanfare and enthusiasm. Although not yet celebrated at a community level yet, but more at individual levels at homes, nonetheless, garners decent number devotees and invitees. Though not celebrated across 3,5,7,10 days as is the tradition in Maharashtra, the Elephant God is fervently worshipped on the 1st day with elaborate arrangements of Bhog(traditional prasad), refreshments and small entertainments by the organising families.
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