Charaiveti: An academic's journey-4

In the author's childhood, politics in the his neighbourhood was dominated by the Communist Party, and the communists were often enthusiastic participants in those religious festivals

In my Kolkata neighbourhood there was one kind of collective action that was unusually successful — this related to religious festivals. Every autumn there was a tremendous collective mobilisation of neighbourhood resources and youthful energy in organising the local pujas for one deity or another, and on these occasions almost the whole community participated with devout dedication and considerable ingenuity (including openly pilfering from the public electricity grid for the holy cause — this art locally known as “hooking”).
 
These festivals had both religious and cultural dimensions, and Bengali society being highly politicised, politics was not far behind. In