Stories from the field: Bilasipara, circa Oct 2024

  

There were lights, lots and lots of them. And the music of hundreds of DJs sang to the thumping of the latest Bollywood item songs. The vehicles carrying these DJs formed a long train of mismatching music. Kajrare Kajrare was followed by Bol Bam, followed by Desi Boys. Beneath these sound trains, men and women danced to celebrate. Men, mostly. Women, few. Men, unafraid. Women, meek. Men, drunk. Women, careful. They danced. And thousands of others just came to see the show. On roads, over the bridge, on the ghat, they were everywhere.

 

As we made our way through tens of abandoned empty pandals, pink, purple, and green, whose idols had been stripped off the mighty spots where they were showered with flowers, sweets, and money for three days, the suddenly missing long lines at Puchka thelas made me want to stop. Duty comes first. My men dropped off the siren-clad car of mine pretty early. They then turned into traffic hawaldars, using their hands to shoo away the oblivious dancers on the road. The crowd peeped into my car like a three-eyed monster in a joker’s dress was jumping in place of me. A car with VIP lights and siren. A car with two guards. A girl sitting in the car. Curiosity was obvious.

 

My guards soon took me out of the car into the raging arena. Topless men with Holi colors splayed over their bodies stopped in between steps to notice the charade. Men gawking at the dancing women stopped for a millisecond to gawk at me. But I was no match for the scared, meek dancing women. So they got back. I thus made it to another crowd of men in action. Kurta-clad men, these were the class monitors separated from their classes. And so they waited for the teacher. And then I arrived.

 

They swarmed me with dentured smiles, some stained with betel nuts, and soon I was being fed Kachoris and Jalebi. As I devoured the delicacies, another set of men, perhaps the folks who were the busiest at the moment, ran between the waters and the sound train to carry the majestic Durga idols on their shoulders. The idols were truly majestic, each more ornate than the previous. Fancy Styrofoam cutouts, plastic jewelry painted in gold and Mahishasurs with unique enamel paints—silver, gold, and black—came one after the other. A ramp was created to push Maa into the waters. And a plastic shower donned the premise where the pushers and pullers got a holy bath.

 

It was all a synchronous dance. Men pushed the idols on the ramp. Roonu Bhaiya coordinated the push, and two men gently toppled the idols into the river, one after the other. The bridge on the side made it all look like Howrah, and the occasional Ululu dhwani made the difference feel less and less. I slowly escaped the tent of the Kurta-clads and reached the ramp’s end. Someone offered me a boat ride. “It is prettier from a distance,” he said.

 

The boat was inflatable, with two rescue members, who were cautioned to drive slow, “Madam bohibo”, madam will sit. I tugged at the string with all my might as the boat slowly took us into the darkness of the flowing waters. As the ghat faded into the distance, lights beamed like fairy bulbs. This side, there were no sound trains, no dancing men. Or women. Broken fragments of the immersed idols floated like tattered corpses of men usurped in a tsunami. It reminded me of the final scenes of Titanic—a boat, a torch, darkness, and floating limbs and faces. A rescuer nonchalantly remarked, “Kal ye sab side me collect ho jayega,” tomorrow all this would gather on the sides. “Phir? Phir kya?” Then what?

 

The destiny of the once-worshipped idols and the filth in the river that fed the whole town did nothing to budge the spirits of the dancers. Or the pushers and pullers. Or anyone else. People cheered, men clinched victories in claiming who had the most stake in the stellar organization. Officers complained but cheered up by a bribe of Jalebis. Drunk men (boys) left some friends who cried of stomach pain because of the desi daaru (or tablet, who knew?). Officials sighed in joy as everything wrapped up. No fights or skirmishes. Everything was smooth. Big words were said, and people patted backs. The next morning, three sweepers swept off the leftover limbs with their brooms into the water.