On the evening of October 10, I got a call from Kishore Banerjee, a senior member of Bondhu Mahal. There was chirp in his voice. "Where are you," he asked. "I have got the permission letter. Call the members in the meeting and let’s share this good news," he said in same zest.

The permission letter he was talking about was Lucknow administration's permission allowing Bondhu Mahal to organise Durga Puja at the Rajendra Singh memorial park. This was our fifth edition of Durga Puja and previous years we had organized it at Durga Kuteer – B1066 Indira Nagar in Lucknow. This year the festival was organized at Rajendra Memorial Park, just bang opposite to B-1066.

So, in literal terms we did not miss out on location but the scale of celebration was much- much higher this time. The Pandal was huge. There were at least eight stalls which sold eatables, artificial jewellary, garments and one even gave advise on investments.

This year masti was at its peak. People swarmed our pandal both during the bhog time and in the evening though we did not have cultural programme. We had the space where people loitered around and fun.

This year celebration was special because every day we had dignitaries who visited our Pandal. These dignitaries include Medical Education Minister Ashutosh Tandon, Senior BJP Leader Sunil Bansal and Tourism Minister Rita Bahuguna Joshi. The icing on the cake was our Durga Puja's motto 'Chalo Kumbh'.

Glimpses

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