Durga Puja 2024 at Times Square in New York: A Visitor’s Account

Durga Puja is the quintessential Bengali festival. It has been an occasion for the public performance of religion and art and enthusiasm for a long time in Bengal. It is now well known beyond the South Asian context even without the attention it recently got as an item on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list. Durga Puja has been celebrated in the US by the Bengali community for about five decades now on the East Coast but this year has to be a significant one in the Goddess’ existence in this country and her global reach. Durga Puja celebrations reached a new height for the Bengali diaspora in 2024 on the weekend of October 5th and 6th. The Goddess was celebrated at Times Square in the heart of Manhattan in New York City for two whole days. This is unprecedented and has generated tremendous excitement as a historic occasion by Bengalis in the region and on social media. 

A Durga puja pandal, right in the middle of the city fascinated all, complete with idol, pandal, white folding chairs and lights (believe me, the Bengalis proved that you could add to the lights in Times Square). There was much singing and dancing in multiple languages, triumphant speeches in East and West Bengali dialects, loud music, running kids, lost and found announcements and visions of men and women in resplendent Bengali finery. There were lots of tripping over sari aanchals by inexperienced new sari-wearers, ululation and conch-blowing competitions (yes, ululation is an English word) and bhog (rice and dal traditionally cooked together as an offering to the Goddess) distributed in Chinese takeout containers. New shoes had to be kept on blistered feet after long walks from different subway stations or parking spots far away. Plenty of curious bystanders joined in the revelry not being able to resist the rhythm of the carnival that infected city folks and tourists alike. Anyone who has attended Durga Puja in a South Asian town or city will recognize these signs as that of the true festival. 

Durga Puja celebrations with all its dazzling lights and loudspeaker glory and crazy crowds found its true abode in the U.S. in the mind-befuddlingly lit up, touristry, even kitschy, crowded space that is our current Times Square! 

Compare this to the usual Durga Puja experience of the U.S. immigrant thus far. During my graduate school life in the early 2000s in Florida, for example, Durga usually got a rented school auditorium or a church hall on a weekend this season, often with stark walls or signs directed at middle schoolers in their gym or cafeteria. The other common location could be a temple where Durga shared her space with many other deities depending on the largesse of the temple and those of the other gods. In some cases, Durga may indeed have had a Durgabari of her own, a temple dedicated to her, but in contrast to the carnivalesque character of her visit from Mount Kailash back to her parents, say, in Kolkata, the tone at these US temples would be religious and devotional in keeping with the somber enthusiasm of a self-selected group of serious worshippers or those Bengalis who were eager to perform their South Asian identities or religious rituals either for themselves or to pass on aspects of culture and a community network to children.

This does not mean that such celebrations lacked the festive spirit. They were the result of tremendous hard work and organizing by enterprising people. Immigrant Bengalis dress in their best sarees, panjabis and often real gold jewelry at Pujo that they carry laboriously with them in heavy suitcases through airport checkpoints expressly for this purpose with such enthusiasm that it sometimes puzzles Bengalis in Kolkata. Yet, in most places, Durga Puja has remained a goal-oriented suburban experience, a perfect testament to an aspect of American multiculturalism where participants can perform being Bengali in certain spaces and then go back to their other lives in public spaces where most in this crowd, engineers, professors, managers, finance professionals or their homemaker partners are well integrated with larger American society. In many ways New York City defies this much Western, orderly, performative practice of designating specific spaces for specific purposes by individuals–worship, pleasure, private life, quality time–you name it. There are just too many people everywhere and things get too chaotic or don’t work or loiterers walk in or spaces are just too expensive to demarcate!  In that sense, few places in the West can be more suitable for the unique experience of the chaotic, sensory overload that is Durga Puja. Bengalis of my generation know that the word carnival just does not do Durga Puja justice.  

Sadly, U.S. Durga Pujas, though widely participated in Bengali communities, remain out of reach for some. Folks have to be plugged into the networks, of course, which requires dedication and effort but also have to pay a substantial entry fee, often in advance, to get a glimpse of the deity. Most of the time they have to have personal transportation (and alas, know how to drive, own a car, or know someone who does), get parking permits, awkwardly change shoes and discard coats to reveal Indian dress in the parking lot meant for warmer climes to put final touches to the emulation of a tropical festival in a climate-controlled temperate zone in the Fall. In contrast to the crowded festival chaos in India, usually folks are very well-behaved at such venues in the US, perhaps with a few lapses when the competitive Bengali puts a shawl or a pamphlet on a chair to reserve a seat in the audience or when the singalong or dancing starts late at night, enhanced by spirits both divine and liquid, with live music bands from back home. Pujo is an intimate community experience at such places, made possible through the hard work of tireless organizers, but often mostly consisting of traditional, middle and upper-middle class family people looking to meet one another on a weekend within their community networks.  

Fast forward to Times Square of 2024. Durga is in an enclosure in front of the TKTS counter in full view of anyone passing by who cares to look. So who passes by this area of Times Square on a Fall weekend? Tourists from all over the world, New Yorkers going to work, commuters pouring out of the subway stations and not-too-far Penn Station, loiterers,  instagram influencers in various poses trying to get selfies against oncoming traffic, shopkeepers, kids heading to the iconic candy stores, shoppers and restaurant goers and the inhabitants of the hotels surrounding the space. 

Within this context, there were some unique aspects of this Pujo that were different. Although one did need to buy a ticket to get into the enclosed Pujo space on the weekend, everything going on inside remained in full view of those passing by separated only by a short fence at all times. The bands playing on stage and dance performers performing in front of the idol, hence, were in constant full view. People on stage directly addressed both paying and non-paying audiences inside and outside the enclosure. Just like back home in Kolkata (and it must be similar in other South Asian cities), Durga attracted many other Times Square characters simply by being her charismatic, festive self, just because she could draw a crowd of happy people. Could it be that the Times Square Statue of Liberty tried to stand a bit higher on stilts that day to get a glimpse of the idol and the giant Gorilla moved from side to side with the music and the Transformer simply stood watching, sharing space because it was Durga Pujo? 

Some of the people passing were stressed by the extra crowds no doubt, just as folks are stressed visiting puja pandals in Kolkata, walking carefully within slow crowds clutching their kids and handbags. In fact, NYPD had a van parked right outside the fence with a digital sign that read “Beware of pickpockets” bringing back memories of pickpockets reputed to be on special assignment in Kolkata during Pujo days from the outskirts of the city. Not all bystanders shared the same Pujo spirit though as is inevitable at any big event. For example, the guy who habitually stands around Times Square carrying a giant placard about the Lord who forgives sins and asks you to “Repent [for the] End is Near [and] Judgement Day is Coming” had edged a little closer and had made his space next to a large painting of the deity next to the entrance. Inside, I heard the organizers expressly welcome people of all faiths and while Durga Pujo was mentioned as a Hindu festival a few times, there were several women in Dhakai saris and head scarves enjoying themselves. In short, it was a mixed crowd. 

2024 has been a painful year for Bengalis as it has been for so many around the globe when the triumph of good over evil that Durga Puja represents has not been so clear. Durga Puja has always been a venue for artistic expression of social and political criticism often expressly so in the design of the idols and pandals which are always ephemeral creations taken down when the idol is immersed. Taking up a stance during Pujo has been especially true this year when the festivities have been muted in Kolkata in protest. The brutal rape and murder of the junior doctor at Kolkata’s R.G. Kar Medical Hospital on August 9 after 36 hours on duty seemingly as she dozed off in a seminar room rocked West Bengal and India. As events revealed systemic corruption and possible political involvements still under investigation, unprecedented protests for justice have continued in the city in a way not seen by this generation. The entire city has come together where the professional and middle class and the working poor too, led by junior doctors and women with full support from the people, have come out in protest. Even as Durga Puja season has started, young doctors are currently on a hunger strike demanding justice. Across the border in Bangladesh, instances of communal violence have been taking place. Idols have been defaced during Durga Puja and the Prime Minister’s ouster and ensuing political instability have been closely watched by the world. In Kolkata festivities are muted this year as many Pujo committees have refrained from the festivities in their demand for justice and subsequent refusal of money allocations. These incidents were repeatedly mentioned on the stage at Times Square in expressions of solidarity.  

While West Bengal and Bangladesh have been crying for justice, protests have been going on in New York throughout the last year, a fact very familiar to those who live or work in the city even though major newspapers have had limited or no coverage for most of them. This Pujo was the weekend just before October 7th by coincidence. On October 5th, as I got off hurriedly at Penn Station to walk along 7th avenue to Times Square to visit the Pujo venue I was faced with the longest protest procession I have ever seen in this city in solidarity with Palestine bordered by cops and cop cars. Youngsters, older folks, people on wheelchairs, babies in arms of all religions, ethnicities and color walked by, some wearing the Palestinian headscarves of solidarity while other placards read “Not in Our Name” amongst many other messages.  The atmosphere was somber, respectful and peaceful as I stood on the sidelines. Some participants came forward and  stretched out their hand as I stretched out mine to receive pamphlets.  I remember how I felt clutching my rather awkwardly draped sari, being the only one in that drape there amongst the relatively few bystanders since we were still quite far from the venue.

New York City has become important in the South Asian popular imagination in the past few decades, perhaps surpassing London. This has been especially so since India’s liberalization of the economy in the early 90s when a section of Indians obtained enough money to travel outside the country and as the Indian diaspora also grew stronger in numbers. Times Square, in that sense, is a venue with symbolic potential for Indians and other South Asians now. Just think about the fact that Indian tourists these days travel to NY, NY to Times Square, Grand Central or the Brooklyn Bridge so aware of how they may be walking in the footsteps of the great Shah Rukh Khan or Preity Zinta in Kal Ho Na Ho. Just do a second’s Google search and you will find at least ten recent superhit Bollywood movies set in New York. In addition, Durga Puja itself is socially significant, not just a religious festival. Bengalis are not new to the symbolic potential of Durga Puja as a locus for the display of wealth and power and as a means to gain popular legitimacy. This has been true from the period of the Zamindars (landowners and ruling class) who held Pujos during the British Raj for this very purpose and the British who supported Pujos for popular acceptance in the then capital of the British empire to more recent political party-supported Pujos in Kolkata. It is not surprising then that as news traveled very quickly on social media, people and news reports started getting into discussion about the “soft power” of the Indian diaspora that this event at Times Square exhibited in the context of a very important US election year where South Asians are very visible this Fall. 

Symbols are funny things. You can create them with any intention in mind and people will bring what they want to see in it. So it has been with Durga Puja at Times Square. I was simply a visitor at the Pujo with little knowledge of who the organizers were (except that they were called The Bengali Club USA) but I found Durga Puja 2024 at Times Square to be extremely interesting sitting as it did at the intersection of so many interesting social and cultural phenomena at this moment in our history. As bystanders joined in the ululation and the singing and the dancing on the last day from way outside the fence, people who clearly had never seen Pujo before, some of the barriers of language and culture and religion certainly seemed to have become more porous, dissolving the distance between center and periphery for human interaction.

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Madhura Bandyopadhyay is a Doctoral Lecturer in the English Department at John Jay College, City University of New York (CUNY) in Manhattan, New York. She grew up in Kolkata, India and has lived in Florida, California and Singapore. She lives in New Jersey now. Apart from being a teacher and scholar of writing, she blogs in her spare time just for fun on her blog at bottledworder.com