HYDERABAD: The next week, along with the entire nation Hyderabad, too, will celebrate Durga Puja. The festival is quite popular in various parts of Eastern India, especially in Bengal where it is easily the most important event of the year. The Bengalis staying in the city too celebrate the puja with pomp and fanfare, with more than a dozen puja pandals coming up.
Bengalis are traditionally food lovers and also associate Durga Puja closely with food. Elaborate plans are often laid out especially for the five festive days. The food part of the celebrations starts on the Panchami day with an event called Anandamela, where home chefs put out food counters in various Puja pandals and sell some of the delicacies, typically snacks and sweets. While the well-prepared items get lapped up in no time, some pujas also run a contest where the best home chefs are awarded prizes.
For the three main puja days of Saptami, Ashtami and Navami, devotees do not eat anything before they offer flowers or ‘Pushpanjali’ to the Goddess at a designated time in the morning. Ma Durga is fed on sweets in the morning, while after anjali people rush to food stalls in the pandals to break their fast with luchi or radhaballabi with chholar dal and alur dom.
Lunch is always at some puja pandal, where bhog or offerings made to the Goddess are provided free to anyone walking in. The top pujas of Hyderabad offer bhog prasad to a few thousand people per day on each on these three days. The bhog here is a complete meal and always vegetarian, it may be khichuri (a rice and daal staple) or vegetable pulao with a vegetable curry, chutney and payesh. A few pujas serve luchis instead of rice on the Ashtami day. The Ashtami bhog is the most coveted of all, and devotees
seldom miss the same. Evening is the time for the non-vegetarian food lovers to rejoice.
For the Puja week, all the puja pandals in Hyderabad host a food court where stalls sell both Bengali and non-Bengali delicacies. Most of the Bengali restaurants and caterers have their stalls at one puja or the other. Snacks like roll, ghugni, chops and cutlets are available in abundance. The food is not restricted just to short eats though. Later in the night you get elaborate combo meals like rice with chingri machher malaicurry (prawn gravy) or mangher jhol (mutton curry) and sweets in most of these places. The standalone sweet shops also attract a lot of attention. Even local delicacies like Andhra-style vepudu and bamboo chicken draw a robust crowd too.
The bigger food courts in Hyderabad are organised by Bangiya Sangskritik Sangha at Secunderabad, as well as the Hyderabad Bangalee Samity puja at Domalguda. In Cyberabad, the Utsab Cultural Association puja at Hi-Tec City and Cyberabad Bangali Association Puja at Miyapur also have a number of stalls serving the Bengali delicacies.
Old City also has a large Durga Puja organised by Hyderabad Bengali Welfare Association near Salar Jung Museum, where cooks are brought in from Bengal to prepare the bhog prasad for the festive days. The day of Bijaya Dashami is timae to bid adieu to the Goddess. Sweets are offered to Ma Durga in the morning, and evening is the time for immersion at the Hussain Sagar Lake. After the immersion, it is a custom to greet all friends or relatives with sweets, bringing an end to the celebrations. Sabyasachi is a food enthusiast and blogs at www.foodaholix.in