Dusshehra in Gorakhpur

The festival season has just begun. It has been a mandate for me for so many years to visit durga badi in Gorakhpur, U.P., India at least once during dusshehra festival. It has been almost sacrosanct for me not because I am a devout Durga ma bhakt but because of a few good teenage memories. As usual after waking up, I was there. The ground was buzzing with festivity as usual. Soon I found myself among the multitude vying for the coveted thali of ‘prasad’. The traffic irked the distributors of the ‘prasad’ umpteen number of times but still with smiling faces they chose to ignore many who ran away with the thali more than once. The motley crowd seemed to be relaxed. Each seemed to have different reasons for that. There could be seen various faces: bong beauties, bespectacled Software Engineers chilling out after a back-breaking sojourn abroad, veterans who have developed a near six sigma expertise in event management, truly reverent ‘sadhaks’ hoping for a good future, busy and business-like sindhi’s overlooking a food stall, dandies and darlings seeking a partner and what not. It was a nice gathering. In particular, the housie game kept the majority engaged. The big fish normally won and the small fry went back vanquished. A section boasted and hooted a lot when anyone reported bogus claims. The funny anchor was at his best in giving names to numbers. I, for one, found my description in the ‘ Seekiya pehelwan’ number 1.
However, it was a tad surprising to find so many Bengalis and it was as if a ‘mini-assansol’ had been created over there. It was a nice cross-cultural exchange. Few typical localites resented this overwhelming presence of a particular community by trying to mock at the jamboree. Few were regretting that nowadays celebrations are not as good as they used to be earlier. A regret that never ends and has almost become clichéd! All said and done, it is nice sometimes to be an ‘up-country’ mofussil boy.