NEW DELHI: Delhi’s tryst with Durga Puja goes back nearly two centuries, to a time when it was still under Mughal rule. The first Puja here was organised in 1842 by Shri Bhavani Majumdar and a few wealthy Bengalis from Rajshahi, now in Bangladesh.
They had arrived on an administrative mission to the Mughal durbar, but with work delayed and the festive season approaching, they decided to bring the celebration to the capital. Idols and puja items were brought all the way from Bengal.
However, it took almost seven decades for the city to witness its first community Puja. In 1910, a group of Bengali traders organised a modest celebration in a small Dharamshala at Ballimaran. Popularly known as the Kashmere Gate Puja, it remains Delhi’s oldest community Puja.
The immersion procession still moves through the streets on a bullock cart, accompanied by dhaakis and shehnai players, a practice that has survived the passage of time.
The growth of Pujas mirrored the city’s transformation. The second community celebration began at Timarpur in 1913. Six years later, workers at the Government of India Press launched their own Puja. By 1921, the festival took root in the DIZ area near Gol Market, moving between local squares until the New Delhi Kali Bari was built on Mandir Marg in 1935.
Lodhi Road saw its first celebration in 1944, followed by Karol Bagh in 1947, and then Darya Ganj and Mata Sundari Road in 1948. In the years that followed, Puja organisers spread into Defence Colony, Kailash Colony, Shahdara, Palam and Patel Nagar. By the 1970s and 80s, the festival had become a fixture in neighbourhoods such as Safdarjung Enclave, Vasant Kunj, Paschim Vihar and the trans-Yamuna belt.
A major milestone came in 1970 when Chittaranjan Park, which has since earned the “moniker mini Bengal” title, hosted its first Puja in a neighbourhood park. Today, CR Park alone hosts more than a dozen large-scale celebrations. By 2014, the number of Durga Pujas in Delhi and the NCR, spanning Dwarka, Mayur Vihar, Indirapuram, Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurugram and Faridabad, had crossed 400. Alongside the grand community celebrations, smaller household Pujas, known as Barir Pujo, continue quietly in many families, preserving an intimate link to tradition.