CUTTACK: Scriptures stipulate different methods for worshipping Goddess Durga on each day of the Puja festival. Specific soil, water and other items are required for each day’s worship, which needs to be arranged well before the beginning of the rituals.
And, the Haldar family of Khatbin Sahi has been the one-stop shop for the various puja committees in the city for getting the customised items as per their rituals. The family has been catering to the needs of the committees for the last more than half a decade without charging any money from them.
The family tradition, which was started by Jaydev Haldar, has now been taken up by his son Arabinda Haldar. The 53-year-old Arabinda, who works with a private company, continues to supply puja materials to pandals free of cost after his father passed away in 2017.
In 1965, a priest from Raghunathpur’s Gopalpur locality told Jaydev that he along with others perform the puja rituals adopting the ‘Bastra Abhabe Sutra Dana’ method. The priests had no option but to deviate from tradition as they did not have the water and soil required for the rituals.
Jaydev was told that the priests consecrated water collected from ponds and wells along with soil from local areas to perform the rituals. While it did the job, the rituals were not performed as have been mentioned in scriptures. Jaydev then took it upon himself to supply the specific water and soil required for the rituals.
As the word spread, organisers of puja committees approached Jaydev for supplying the items. Now, apart from different Shakti shrines, around 150 puja committees avail the different varieties of water and soil from Haldar’s family.
“After my father’s death in 2017, I adopted the practice of collecting and providing the varieties of water and soil required for Durga Puja free of cost. Even as collecting the items is a tough task, it gives me immense pleasure to supply the same for performing the rituals,” Arabinda said.
Apart from 11 types of puja materials, as many as 13 different types of water like dew, lukewarm, water from oceans, coconut water, rainwater, water containing lotus pollen, spring water, ‘sarbooushodhi’ and ‘mahaoushodhi’ along with 15 types of soil collected from different sources like elephant tusks, teeth of the pig, horns of the ox and riverbanks of Ganga and Saraswati are required for Durga Puja.
The puja materials are collected by Arabinda and packed in plastic containers by his mother Radharani, wife Mamata, sister Swapnashree, son Aditya and daughter Padmabati. “While the required materials have been given to Cuttack Chandi Mandir for conduct of the 16-day rituals, materials will be supplied to Puja committees after Mahalaya,” said Arabinda.