At the centre of the line-up of pujas is, of course, Durga Puja. There was a time when it towered over a small collection of public pujas, while a good number were celebrated within homes, modestly, without undue fanfare and with emotional connect. Today, propitiating gods and goddesses is increasingly becoming a public affair - the private space for them at the heart of families is getting smaller and smaller.
In the good old days when life was simpler and money harder to come by, the puja season began with Durga Puja and ended with Kali Puja, giving the good god-fearing but secular people of West Bengal time to recover and get ready to usher in Christmas with its attendant paraphernalia of cakes and public decorations.
Today, the public calendar begins earlier, before the monsoons are fully gone, with Biswakarma Puja. Now Biswakarma - literally he who constructed martyalok, the worldly domain - was always worshipped, but entirely in factories and offices. It was the one day when you were left to your own devices if your car broke down because the mechanic would not take up tools. But what do you do if you have to look under the bed for disappearing factories? The good rickshaw unions, both the mechanical and pedalling types, have come to the rescue by amassing members' small contributions and making obeisance to the lord of mechanical things a very big and public affair.
Earlier, after Durga Puja, Lakshmi Puja was a very low-key affair, mostly within homes and, yes, also where the public Durga puja was held but in an extremely subdued way. Folklore went that any dhum dham would scare away the extremely shy goddess, (fortune would go away with her) who appropriately had by her side the wise nightly owl. But the puja today has become much more visible.
Kali Puja, which comes thereafter, was undoubtedly a loud cracker of an affair - that is before restrictions on noise pollution and carbon emission came in. But the pandal to house the goddess was modest to the extent of being dowdy - no point in doing it up when a falling missile could send it up in flames. Now public Kali pujas are elaborate affairs; the one patronised by Kolkata's mayor had its pandal in the middle of a water body imitating the Golden Temple.
Most importantly, things don't end with Kali Puja. It seems goddess Durga is too precious to let go. So there is another end-of-the-season obeisance paid to her, in her manifestation as Jagaddhatri. It follows the same rituals spread over four days and with very large public participation too. The difference is a division of labour. Those who have arrived organise the Durga puja; those who aspire to public stature bend in pronam before Jagaddhatri.
If you think this is more than enough, then be warned, say experts - there is yet another manifestation of Durga, as Annapurna, worshipped in spring (hence it is also referred to as Basanti). If the lords of the para or mohalla get any bigger, they will begin the puja season, with offerings to Annapurna, even before summer proper starts. The householder's ultimate fear is that the para dadas, who do not read and write all that much, may take over even Saraswati Puja in January-February from school and college students, thus leaving barely a month before the yearly cycle starts with Annapurna Puja.
Moreover, some lesser gods like Shani are worshipped all year round, at makeshift temples or shrines at street corners. Come Saturday and there is a little crowd before them, with devout women seated in rows and offerings pouring in. Warding off the evil eye by worshipping Shani is understandable, but how do you explain the increasing prosperity and popularity of even local Shitala temples when the need to appease the goddess to ward off epidemics has gone in this post-vaccination age?
The rationalist Marxist ideologues who disdained the opiate of the masses were eclipsed long ago by left leaders themselves, who took the political decision to embrace public pujas as social events way before they lost power. Today, popular religion is thriving, supported by a slice of growing incomes co-opted by rent seekers. It is being aided by a return to belief in fate. Many fairly young people nowadays wear any number of stones on their fingers to push their luck. Not a good omen, if you ask me.