Puja events are on
September 29, 2014: Today is Panchami and the Puja fever is on everywhere. On Friday evening (Sept 26) I went to Jhaal Farezi as Madhu was having a 7-day event Thakurdaalan by the flyover – Festival of Fashion, Photography, Installation Art, Music and Food from Tuesday (Sept 23) till Friday (Oct 3). On Friday evening it was Rita Bhimani in conversation with Kunal Basu.
After attending Jhaal Farezi I went to The Oberoi Grand to attend a reception on the occasion of the 65th National Day of the People’s Republic of China hosted by the Consul General of China, Mr and Mrs Wang Xuefeng.
As I was scheduled to be in Bangalore for the Bangalore Literature Festival, I had sent a regret letter for both these events. But I had to cancel the Litfest and my Bangalore trip due to personal reasons so I decided to attend these two events in Kolkata.
On Sunday evening I had the formal inauguration of Manicktalla Chaltabagan Lohapatty Durga Puja which was inaugurated by Sharmila Tagore and Soumitra Chatterjee. My friend Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury, industrialist Gyanshyam Sarda and actress, Shrreya Pande was also present during the inauguration. In order to listen to the Dadasaheb Phalke award winner Soumitra Chatterjee and popular actress Sharmila Tagore, crowds had started gather. At around 9 pm thousands of people had gathered around the pandal clicking Soumitra and Sharmila together from their mobile phones.
The Chief Minister, Smt Mamata Banerjee, could not make it on September 25 due to last minute changes in her schedule so we had the inauguration on September 28, 2014.
Today morning I went to the Amherst Street Police Station to attend the Puja Parikrama 2014 flag off ceremony for Pronam Project an initiative of The Bengal and Kolkata Police. All the senior police officials, representing the various divisions of Kolkata Police, attended the launch function.
Nine AC buses were arranged for senior citizens of Pronam for the Puja Parikrama or visit to important puja mandaps in Kolkata as per special arrangements. All the elderly who attended were above 70 years and few of them were in their 90s. Each year Pronam organizes this parikrama for the senior citizens who are unable to visit puja pandals on their own due to age and infirmity and new special support and care to do so.
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