durga puja

Went to a quaint suburban Durga Puja in Renton yesterday with the family. My brother went, too, which was a first. I usually go once every year for my parents' sake, and I'll be honest, there's an element of nostalgia in it for me. It's like Bengali Christmas. We had a spot of trouble finding the right building once we got to Renton Technical College -- surprisingly expansive for a community college, with building labels running almost the entire gamut of the alphabet. The organizers had omitted to say which building it was on the invitation, and for some reason my dad decided it must be building C. So we got there, found parking surprisingly quick, which we took to be a stroke of good fortune rather than a sign that something was amiss, and then walked across the lot to the building entrance. As we neared the building, the lack of fanfare, decoration, and Bengalis grew increasingly suspicious, and we began wondering if we weren't perhaps at the wrong building. But my parents assured me that they saw Bengalis in kurta-pajamas through the glass doors, so everything was golden. Except it was not. When we entered the building, we realized to some mixture of horror and amusement that we had crashed some kind of African cultural event. Their garb was eerily similar to our kurta pajamas. After a cursory look around the building to make sure there were no Bengalis crouching under desks or hiding around corners, we managed to learn, with some difficulty, that we really wanted to be in building H, so thither we went.

    It was a nice arrangement. The building reminded me of public school buildings in India, with exterior staircases and rows of classrooms along exterior wrap-around balconies on each floor. The Durga Puja celebration was on the half-basement floor. The thing that caught everyone's eye was that we had priestesses instead of priests presiding over the ceremony -- apparently unprecedented. Everyone lauded this sign of progress, and indeed it felt good to behold progress in a facet of life so seldom associated with it (religion). Speaking of which, religion is growing the world over, according to Wikipedia. Apparently irreligion is only a thing in the West. Atheists and agnostics may only be a temporary blip in the timeline of human existence. Religion, like mustaches, is making a comeback.

    Just because they were progressive it didn't mean that this Durga Puja didn't want for experience. When the aarathi started in full earnest, all I do was to look at the divine flame being held aloft near the low ceiling, with all its smoke detectors and sprinklers, and think I really would rather not have to endure being soaked to the bone on the ride home. But surely someone had thought of the fire alarms when they organized the event? Nope. Five minutes later, ear-piercing fire alarms, strobe lights -- the whole shebang. Half of us went outside and assembled in the field, across from some kind of furry convention or something called "Catoberfest", while the other half remained indoors in defiance of fire safety protocol. A firetruck pulled up shortly after, much to all the kids' (and my) delight. I did feel bad for the progressive priestesses. Their progress was being stymied by bad decisions. However, the whole thing was sorted out before too long, and the aarathi continued once we'd filed back in, sans flame this time. All in all, amusing.