CUTTACK: Durga Puja at the Chandni Chowk puja mandap - one of the oldest in Cuttack - is incomplete without its ‘Machha bhoga’.With the demand for it rising year after year, the Chandni Chowk puja committee has decided to prepare ‘Machha bhoga’ for 8,000 people this year up from 5,000 made earlier.
Every year during Nabami, the committee prepares ‘Machha bhoga’, a special curry made of fish and vegetables, along with ‘Kanika’ and ‘Khata’. It is offered to subsidiary deities and then distributed among people of 10 sahis and also sold to devotees. The committee uses freshwater fish like ‘Rohi’ and ‘Bhakura’ for the curry.
For the Mother Goddess, ‘Pohala Machha’ is cooked along with ‘Kanika’, ‘Baigan Bhaja’ and ‘Saga Bhaja; to be offered as bhoga on Nabami. Only two kg of the bhoga is prepared and is not distributed among devotees.
“This year, we have decided to use seven quintal of fish, one quintal of fish head, 10 quintal of vegetables to cook the ‘Machha bhoga’ and seven quintal of rice for ‘Kanika’,” president of the committee Ramesh Chandra Behera said. The ‘khata’ will be prepared from the ‘Pani Kakharu’ (ash gourd) which is offered to the deity as a symbolic sacrifice during Astami rituals. As many as 35 cooks have been roped in to prepare the ‘bhoga’.
“Devotees from not just Cuttack but also Bhubaneswar, Choudwar, Dhenkanal throng the mandap for the famed ‘Machha bhoga’. The demand is such that we have been unable to cater to all the devotees in the past. So this year, we decided to increase the quantity of ‘Machha bhoga’. We will open a counter three days before Nabami for people to buy tokens for the bhoga,” he added.
The history of Durga puja at Chandni Chowk dates back to nearly 200 years. Started by the Darpani royal family, the puja here is performed as per Bengali tradition. Although there is no recorded history on when the offering of ‘Machha bhoga’ started, Behera said even today the bhoga is first sent to the royal family after puja and then distributed among devotees.
Apart from the bhoga, the puja committee will prepare 10 quintal of ‘laddoo’ to be distributed among devotees and people of the 10 sahis free of cost. It has earmarked Rs 4 lakh for the food as part of the celebration.