The Ritual of Durga Puja Shopping

So yesterday afternoon Baba comes and tell us that today we are going for Puja shopping on Sunday evening. I nod and at the same time tell myself silently that yes it is that time of the year almost! I also acknowledge that he is still steadily holding on to some traditions while the lazy me would have preferred to browse online.

Reminiscences galore!

Back in those days this was perhaps the only time we shopped for clothes for the whole year or let’s say a New Year or Birthday could have been an exception once in a while! So, on a fine Saturday, we would head to PB, do the shopping and snack out before heading home.

So, three sets of dresses each for the sibling and me, and may be just one or two for Baba and a few more for Maa. So we had three dresses, one each to be worn on Saptami, Ashtami and Navami. My personal ritual would be to repeat the Saptami one on Dasami unless we got lucky and our aunts or uncles got us a bonus dress for Puja that year!

I don’t even remember if we had much say when it came to choosing. Baba use to prefer tailor made ones so some of our dresses would be stitched by the same tailor who stitched Baba’s shirts and trousers. I remember clearly the brochures that we use to go through to select the design and many a times would end up agreeing with what the tailor suggested. As I write this, I can clearly remember the tailor’s shop on the main road, the passersby and a few taxis plying on the road while we selected fabric and design. I also can remember some of the colours of the dresses and still have some vague remembrance of some colours and patterns.

As adolescence touched, the choice of dresses changed and I graduated from wearing a frock to wearing Salwar suits and sometimes a Saree too.

After the shopping ritual, the next ritual would be for family or close friends to visit each other and see the shopping that was done. So the bags would be kept sorted for each member, and every time someone came, it would be taken out, the dresses displayed, some exchanges over choice of colour and material, or may be price, and then neatly put back only to be taken out again for another visitor.

The changing times!

With the onset of adulthood, Puja shopping meant choosing for oneself independently and the ratio changed to one set from parents to remaining ones bought by the self, for the self. There have been many times when I have even said no to buying any dresses because I didn’t need many. With the little financial independence we had, I bought clothes mostly because I wanted to try something new, a new colour or a new style. Online shopping enabled us to get what we needed at just a few clicks.

Today when I look back, I feel a certain pain remembering the times I had asked them not to get anything for me. Ma would insist, Baba would be quiet and I would be on my own. This Puja gifting is an emotion and no matter what we have in life, a parent’s gift is what we should treasure most, however humble or not per the latest trend.

Letting it be, letting it flow

We learn, understand and our perspectives change from time to time. So once much much later or rather in more recent times, during such a shopping spree I had said that I didn’t want anything but Baba didn’t agree and so I had no choice but to comply. And this continues.

Last year I was telling someone during a normal chat about my plans for a certain weekend to go with Baba for shopping. He was awed and told me how lucky I was to have my father around to take me Puja shopping. He was missing his parents, his childhood and I could feel his pain. I went for shopping and bought two dresses without being pestered though these are still lying in the same bag after a year because I did not get a chance to wear them.

So yesterday, when he told us about today’s plan, I said nothing and quietly went along, didn’t protest and got two dresses. We shopped, dined out and executed one of the pre Puja rituals. I can say for sure the excitement level is nothing in comparison to what we lived and experienced in our childhood.

Days like this makes me want to time travel and relive some of childhood one more time. Just one more time!