How Durga Puja proved that Kolkata’s spirit never sinks

 The City of Joy  transformed its worst floods in four decades into its most triumphant Puja — with devotion and resilience

 

There are cities that bend under pressure, and then there is Kolkata — a city that has made an art form of standing tall precisely when the odds are stacked against it. This year, as Durga Puja celebrations unfolded across Bengal, with Kolkata as the epicentre, something extraordinary happened. Kolkata celebrated not despite calamity, but almost in defiance of it, exuding resilience as much as festive fervour.

 

Only days before the first dhaak beats would echo through its lanes, Kolkata had endured its heaviest rainfall in nearly four decades. Ten lives were lost. Roads vanished beneath churning water. Trains ground to a halt. Families waded through waist-deep floods, unsure whether their most cherished festival would survive nature’s fury. For one fleeting, unthinkable moment, it seemed Durga Puja itself might drown.

 

Despair, though, has never had the lost word in Kolkata.

 

The Goddess arrives on time

The moment the skies cleared, the city surged back with astonishing energy. Pandals threatened by waterlogging were restored overnight — not tentatively, but with fierce determination. Clay idols that seemed lost were carefully salvaged by artisans who understand that the Goddess is fashioned not merely from straw and clay, but from devotion itself. Organising committees that had watched their months of preparation teeter on collapse simply refused to let it happen. They worked through exhaustion and uncertainty, and delivered something miraculous: a Puja bigger, brighter, and more dazzling than ever before.

 

As I am serving the 80 year old puja committee as chairman myself, this year, I had invited Ambassadors, High Commissioners from New Delhi and Kolkata-based diplomats to witness my Chaltabagan and the other Durga Puja in the city. When the rain poured, we all feared that we would have to cancel, sceptical that the experience might be washed away. But everything turned out great and went off without a hitch — and they witnessed not just the Puja, but Kolkata itself on full display: a vibrant city of art, history, tradition, and resilience.

 

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, inaugurating pandals across Kolkata, captured the moment beautifully on social media: “The skies have cleared, and the dark clouds that hovered over us have been swept away by the resplendent glow of Maa Durga arriving in our midst. Bengal’s triumphant spirit has once again shone through, undaunted by storms and torrents, beaming with joy and hope.”

 

An economy rebuilt

This wasn’t merely a symbolic triumph — it was economic resurrection. The Puja economy in 2025 rebounded sharply, expanding according to initial estimates 10 to 15 per cent to reach between ₹46,000 and ₹50,000 crore. Retail, hospitality, transport, handicrafts, advertising, entertainment — every sector found renewal under Durga Puja’s luminous arc. 

 

More numbers tell a more vivid story. Peak electricity demand was pegged above 12,000 MW — a staggering testament to the scale of human activity unleashed. Organisers reported double-digit growth since 2024, with consistent boost across categories: jewellery, apparel, footwear, food and beverages, and more. E-commerce platforms registered blockbuster orders, buoyed by GST rationalisations and festive offers. Durga Puja helped revive corporate sponsorships as well as consumer confidence, breathing fresh optimism into the state’s lungs.

Yet behind these glowing statistics lies the everyday truth of Puja in Kolkata and Bengal: it belongs most essentially to the hawker at Gariahat, the ‘mishti’ shop in Sovabazar, the dhaki from Nadia, the idolmaker in Kumartuli. These are the people who form Puja’s real backbone. Many of them suffered from the floods, and many continue struggling against the rising tide of online retail. Hawkers’ unions estimated massive losses due to waterlogging and digital competition. Still, they carried the season on their shoulders — selling, cooking, drumming, sculpting — reminding us that Durga Puja is not merely an economic multiplier but a lifeline, in the most literal sense.

 

Theatre overcoming floodwater

Durga Puja is theatre staged at the grandest scale imaginable. This year was no different. The pandals that rose across Kolkata — some themed on global landmarks, others on intimate social messages — were not simply temporary structures. They became living testaments to ingenuity and sheer will. Two days after Mahalaya, many of those pandals stood underwater, mere hours before their scheduled opening. What followed was breathtaking: volunteers pumped out floods, carpenters rebuilt platforms, electricians rewired entire illumination systems in record time.

 

When Kolkata’s streets finally lit up, they told a story far more profound than any decoration: a story of how quickly hope itself can be rebuilt.

 

Even Kumartuli, the historic quarter of idolmakers, faced its trial. Clay idols are fragile, and water is their natural enemy. But sculptors who have handed down their craft across generations worked tirelessly to restore what was lost. No Puja committee went without its Goddess. No devotee was left disappointed. The city simply refused to allow disaster to dictate devotion or stymie spectacle.

 

What no other city could do

It’s no exaggeration to call Durga Puja Bengal’s greatest gift to the world. Recognised by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity, it represents a remarkable convergence: artistry meets spirituality, commerce meets culture, the sacred meets the spectacular. But it’s also something no other place could possibly replicate.

 

Venice has its Biennale. Rio de Janeiro has the Carnival. Munich has Oktoberfest. But I doubt if any of them could endure the heaviest rainfall in four decades and then deliver a festival of such magnificence only days later. This is uniquely Kolkata. This is uniquely Bengal. “There is nothing in the world like Durga Puja,” said Sourav Ganguly, national sporting icon and one of Bengal’s favourite sons, while visiting a spectacular pandal in South Kolkata. We couldn’t agree more.

 

The reason lies in how the festival functions here. Durga Puja is truly a festival of, for, and by the people. It’s built by neighbourhoods and communities, powered by a collective spirit that categorically refuses defeat. When a para decides to build its pandal, an entire ecosystem rallies: electricians, caterers, carpenters, choreographers, families contributing whatever they can spare. When the floodwaters receded this year, that collective force was unleashed with remarkable speed. Within days, the city was ready not just to celebrate but to stun the millions visiting the 3,000-plus pandals.

 

The dividends you cannot count

A research report commissioned by the British Council in 2019 estimated the economic worth of the creative industries around Durga Puja in West Bengal at Rs 32,377 crore! Terming it “the world’s largest public arts festival”, the report stated that the weeklong extravaganza matched the size of the economy of many smaller countries and accounted for 2.58 per cent of the state GDP. 

 

While economists measure Durga Puja in crores of rupees, in percentage points of GDP, in megawatts consumed, the festival’s true dividend eludes such metrics. It lives on the faces of children seeing their first pandal lights. It lives in the joy of elderly residents at an old-age home during the distribution of bhog. It lives in the dhakis whose beats echo late into the night, their drums soaked with both sweat and pride. It lives in the awestruck social media posts of visitors from faraway lands who experience the magic of Durga Puja for the first time.

In the aftermath of disaster, this intangible dividend becomes clearer still. The floods reminded us of our vulnerabilities — how quickly the familiar can disappear beneath water. The Puja reminded us of our strength — how quickly that same familiar can be rebuilt, restored, reimagined. 

 

This year, Kolkata proved this once again. The waters rose, but the city rose higher. The Goddess arrived, and with her, an entire people found renewal, through art and with ardour.

Which other city in the world could have managed this? Which other city would have even dared to try?