Herald Café: When was the Durga Puja
Committee formed and since when have you been associated with it?
P K Mukherjee: I came to Goa in 1987 and
joined the Panjim Bengali Association in 1988. But I understand that the
association in Vasco came about much earlier, maybe in the 1970s. In 1988,
there were a lot of Bengalis in government service and other allied
organisations in Goa who spearheaded the formation of this association.
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HC: What is the strength of the Bengali
community in Goa and besides Bengalis, which other communities join in the
Durga Puja celebrations?
PKM: It appears that there are only
around four to five thousand Bengalis in Goa. In Panjim, the association has a
membership of around 100 people – so during Durga Puja time, it should be
around 400-500 people inclusive of families.
States like Assam, Tripura and others
which are culturally similar to Bengal also celebrate Durga Puja. Hence during
the festival, we have many people from the North East joining in. But in Goa,
many Goans actively participate and donate to the festival. As it is
well-known, the Dempo family, from the very beginning, is the patron of the
Durga Puja Festival and has always had a member on the Committee. Several
military personnel join in as well.
While the festival is organised with a
big bang in Bengal, around which many associated economic activities arise, in
other places it is on a comparatively smaller scale.
HC: What are the cultural events being
planned this year and where?
PKM: This year, instead of four days,
the festival will be a three-day affair due to religious sightings. There will
be a series of cultural programmes, pujas, dances, community lunches, and
various competitions including Bengali vocabulary writing competition. Earlier,
the members themselves would put up the shows, but now the committee is
thinking of appointing artistes from outside. But the priests, drummers,
idol-makers have always come from Bengal.
The present venue of the festival in
Panjim, the Gomantak Maratha Samaj Hall is a much larger and compact area as
compared to the earlier old Menezes Braganza hall which was much smaller.
HC: Is the younger generation carrying
on the torch?
PKM: I have been president of the
committee for two spans of two-three years and prior to that the cultural
secretary of the association. Designations are not as important as the ability
to contribute in time and labour to organise an activity-intense four-day
festival. I recall I used to write and act in my own dramas in the early days.
Unfortunately, in Goa, the younger Bengali generation is not interested in
taking the festival forward by contributing in terms of time and labour,
although they are keen to participate in all the cultural programmes. The main
aim of the association is to keep traditions and festivals alive and to involve
the younger generation.
