Wales Puja gets heritage tag

KOLKATA: Durga Puja celebrations now span the globe because of the Bengali diaspora settled abroad. Every year, new Puja committees are added to the list as more and more from the city move out. But one of the oldest ones abroad, the 40-year-old Puja in Wales, is now being organized with funds from their government, making it perhaps the only such case. What's more, the idol is being prepared by students in Wales.
The Puja was started in the mid-70s in Cardiff by the Wales Puja Committee - a motley group of Bengali doctors who had left Kolkata a decade earlier.Gradually, it became a community event with even the native Welsh populace participating in the festivities.
This year, organizers are documenting the lives of the first generation Bengali settlers through their Pujas and record it as part of Welsh heritage. The UK Heritage Lottery Fund, which is backed by the state to preserve tangible and intangible heritage, has included the Puja on their list and awarded the organizers £20,000 for this year's event. The idea was initiatied by Sandeep Raha, a doctor, and IT specialist Nileem Saha, both settled in Cardiff.
"A Puja by Bengalis becoming a part of Welsh written history is a huge honour. This is part of an overall effort to capture the multicultural heritage of Wales, the oldest part of England," said Raja Biswas, a doctor and a spokesperson of the committee. who was in town recently.
Three Welsh schools - Radyr Comprehensive, Llanishen High and Cardiff High School - have been roped in to study the community and the Puja as part of their religious study elective paper this session.
"You have to come to Wales to see the impact of our Bengali Puja on the Welsh population," Saha said.
Another speciality this year is that instead of shipping an idol from Kumartuli, it is getting prepared at the venue itself.
Two artists from Kumartuli have been flown to Cardiff and the papier mache-and-clay idol is being crafted under their guidance by community members and students of Cardiff Art School. The excitement was palpable when 11 year old
Rysha Biswas (11) said, "I loved working with the artist. I cannot wait to perform Indian dances during our cultural programme."
Her friend Ellora Mukherjee said, "It was unbelievable how mere drawings were transformed with straw, then clay and then paint."