Durga Puja at the heritage houses of Kolkata

Durga Puja is not only about the community celebrations. In fact, the community celebrations started only around a century ago. Before that, it was more of a religious festival, arranged with pomp by the wealthy families of Bengal.
Many of these families still perform the puja (worship) of Goddess Durga, following their own unique customs and rituals for centuries. The West Bengal tourism department arranges tours of some of these heritage houses during Durga Puja and I joined one of these on Nabami, the penultimate day of the festival. You can also download the list from the WBTDC website and do it yourself, as one of my friends did. The tours are named 'Sanatani'.
WBTDC's arrangement is also good. They take tourists around in buses — both AC and non-AC — and end the tour with bhog (ritual offering to the goddess which is eaten by devotees as the 'sanctified' food) at Sovabazar Rajbari. Overall, it was a good experience and I will share some of the photographs of the houses and their respective celebrations along with some information about the houses and their history in this post.

Rani Rashmonir Bari (Queen Rashmoni's house), Janbazar 

This house was meant for the queen's tax collection. Today, no one really knows who the house belongs to. The puja is apparently arranged from the money earned as rent from the various shops that run from the outer side of the premises

Ramakrishna Paramhansa is said to have performed this puja sometime in the mid-19th century

The hallmark of the house is its courtyard style of architecture

Chandra Bari (House of the Chandras), Nirmal Chunder Street

In 1781, Bharat Chandra came from Nadia district and settled down in Calcutta. The house he built was extended from time to time

It was Ganesh Chandra who started the puja, but the date is not known

This is the only house where we faced a bit of hostility and rudeness. Tourists can be a bit rowdy, but the family members must have thought about that before allowing WBTDC to bring tourists. An elderly woman was roughly spoken to right in front of me for a very simple reason. I won't recommend this house if you go on your own

Thanthania Dutta Bari (Duttas' house in Thanthania)

This house has an interesting history and is perhaps the most well maintained of all the houses we visited. It's apparently called the Hazarduari of Kolkata. Hazarduari literally means 'thousand doors'. The original Hazarduari is in Murshidabad. This house probably got this sobriquet because of the size of its courtyard

The idol is unique because here Goddess Durga is seated on her husband Lord Shiva's lap and they are riding a horse instead of Durga's usual ride, the lion. Apparently the reason is that in the 19th century, Brahmins, the highest in the Hindu caste system, declared that only they could perform Durga Puja. To bypass this rule, the Duttas modified the idol from its traditional form. They are still continuing with it

The puja is 150 years old. The family owes its wealth to Dwarikanath Dutta who apparently did business with Manchester. This beautiful courtyard is said to be only a tenth of the entire house

Chhatubabu-Latubabur Bari (House of Chhatubabu-Latubabu), Beadon Street

This family's name started with Ramdulal Dey Sarkar (1752-1825), who is said to have started business with the USA. The family claims he was the founder of trade between India and the US. He also started the puja

An interesting feature of this idol is that instead of her daughters goddesses Lakshmi and Saraswati, Goddess Durga is flanked by Jaya and Bijaya. Her ride is Debsingha, an animal with the head of a lion and body of a horse

The house gets its name from Ramdulal's sons Asutosh Deb (nickname Chhatubabu) and Pramatha Nath Deb (nickname Latubabu). Apparently Ramdulal owned 19 houses in Kolkata once. An interesting feature of the courtyard is that it has a ceiling unlike the usual open ones

Khelat Ghosh's house, Pathuriaghata

Going by the guide's account, the history of this family is not something to be very proud of. Like many other wealthy Indian families of British era, they too had sided with the British. Khelat Ghosh earned India's first governor-general Warren Hastings's favour by hiding him when Bengal's ruler Nawab Siraj-ud-Daula attacked the British forces in 1756. The very next year the nawab was defeated and killed and Hastings apparently gave Ghosh a lump sum in gratitude. With this money, Ghosh started business and became so rich, he was apparently called the 'Banker of India'. He owned 108 houses in the city

The puja is 166 years old

This house has a huge open courtyard and the Thakurdalan (literally, the 'corridor of the Goddess', where the puja is done) is massive

Sovabazar Rajbari

This is probably the most famous of all the heritage house pujas, but again, theirs is not a history to be very proud of. The history of this family dates back to Raja Nabakrishna Deb, who was the dewan (sort of finance minister/secretary) of Lord Clive. The house originally belonged to Shobharam Ghosh, after whom the area Sovabazar was named. The British declared at that time that those who could not show proper papers would lose their property. That's how Ghosh lost his house, which came to Nabakrishna Deb, who was later given the 'Raja' title by the British

The puja was started in 1757, in commemoration of Nawab Siraj-ud-Daula's defeat by Clive in the Battle of Plassey. Goddess Durga rides a horse instead of a lion

This is the second house of the Debs, right opposite the 'original' Sovabazar Rajbari. It was built by Nabakrishna and inherited by his adopted son Gopimohan. The 'original' Rajbari went to his biological son Rajkrishna. It's in Gopimohan's house that tourists can have bhog

The bhog was served to us on the rooftop. It was a sumptuous meal with all kinds of Bengali delicacies included. Overall, nice end to the tour

To enjoy community Durga Puja photographs, click on the following links:
Glimpses of Durga Puja (Part I)
Glimpses of Durga Puja (Part II)
Glimpses of Durga Puja (Part III)
To know more about the festival of Durga Puja, click here