Maa Durga Samity
Kashmar · Our family's Puja
Kashmar · A family temple · 150+ years of Puja

Maa Durga Samity

Every autumn our village gathers, the dhaak starts up, and Maa comes home. This is where we keep those days safe — for our children, and for theirs.

Walk through the years Our story
Our story

One family. One Maa. More than a hundred and fifty autumns.

Our forefathers began this Puja in the family temple, and our family has never let it lapse — not once in more than 150 years. The artists have changed, the pandal takes a new shape most years, but the sound of the dhaak on Shashthi morning is still the sound our grandparents woke up to.

This website is our attempt to give those years a proper home: the photographs, the videos, the stories the elders tell, and the small things nobody ever wrote down. Every year gets its own Parikrama — a little book you can turn, page by page.

150+
Years of Puja
1
Family temple
∞
Memories kept
Parikrama

Every year, a book of its own

Photographs, videos and stories from each year's Puja — open one and turn the pages.

See every year
The days of the Puja

Six days, one long breath.

However each home does it, this is the rhythm the whole of Bengal keeps — and the one we grew up inside.

1
Mahalaya
The night that turns to morning

Before sunrise the radio hums the old chants and the whole village is half-awake. Maa is being called down.

2
Shashthi
Maa's face is unveiled

Bodhon in the evening. The first dhaak, the first conch, and the temple finally feels like home again.

3
Saptami
Morning by the water

The Kola Bou goes for her bath at dawn, draped and wrapped, and the puja begins in earnest.

4
Ashtami
Anjali, with folded hands

Everyone in fresh clothes, flowers cupped in both palms. Then the sandhi hour, when even the children go quiet.

5
Nabami
Smoke, drums and dhunuchi

The evening aarti fills the courtyard. Dhunuchi dance, hands full of coconut husk and glowing coals — and nobody wants the night to end.

6
Dashami
Sindoor and goodbye

Sindoor khela, sweets pressed into every hand, wet eyes. We see Maa off with the promise: come back soon.

Coming up

Save the dates

Exact dates follow the almanac each year. We update this list from the console as soon as the Samity confirms them.

Date to be announced

Mahalaya

Pre-dawn gathering at the temple.

Date to be announced

Durga Puja — Shashthi to Dashami

Six days of puja, bhog, aarti and cultural evenings.

Date to be announced

Bijoya Sammilani

Greetings, sweets and meeting everyone once more.

Come home for the Puja

Our doors are open to every villager, every guest, every stranger who arrives hungry.