Take a ride through the world of Harry Potter, tour the famous temples of the country and meet your favourite animated character Spiderman. The puja committees across the city are leaving nothing to imagination to decorate their pandals and gates to take revellers on a magical tour this season.
One of the oldest (57th year) Durga Puja celebrations take place at the Station Bazaar Durga mandap, organised by the Sarbajanya Durga Puja Samiti. This year they have replicated a few scenes from Harry Potter and Spiderman movies. Models of the characters which will be enabled to move electrically will re-enact scenes from both the movies.
“This theme was created mainly to attract the children. We wanted the five days of the puja celebrations to be entertaining for the children who might be bored due to their academic calendars,” said puja samiti secretary Dipak Jena. The complete expense of the decorations was around Rs 8 lakh, said Jena. This year they have added 750 grams of gold ornaments in addition to 160 kg of silver ornaments and idol’s ‘medha’. Jena also added that their ‘medha’ was one of the tallest, around 22 feet.
The Saheed Nagar Puja Committee members have created a feast of lights by using computerised facility, according to a Puja committee member. “Our total cost of the puja is around Rs 35 lakh and special emphasis has been given to pandal lighting. We are using the computerised lighting for the first time and it has been used mainly to decorate the interiors of the pandal,” said one of the puja committee members. Their idol will be adorned with a silver crown weighing 23 kg.
Rather than copy from something, the Nayapalli Puja committee members decided to create their own design for pandal. The 80- foot tall and 120-foot wide pandal is made from jute and mat. The Rasulgarh Puja Committee sends out a message on green environment. The pandal here depicts a Shiva temple atop a mountain and for the purpose they started growing the saplings a few days prior to pandal construction.
This year, the Commissionerate Police has received around 170 applications for licence from Bhubaneswar city and its suburbs.