26th September 1980
a.m.Victoria Memorial to see Bhaskar chander and Gopa Chaudhuri and to get the address of Souresh Chandra Roy (who I phoned today and spoke to his father). His father told me that Rudra Roy built a Durga dalan in 1682 and in it was installed the clay image-I questioned him and he said 'clay image'.
Bhaskar Chander's family came from a village in Nadia district called Ranaghat. The Chunder family moved to Calcutta during the invasion of the Bargis/Marattas (1740s) as Fort william offered security. The Chunder family first started their Durga puja in 1868 and it has been going since then. He invited me to attend this year's Dp.
The elaborate image that Profulla is making will be in terracotta-modern style. I watched an ahlada Ganesh being made. Profulla made the head of the asura in one image totally out of tush mati-entel over the small straw-core protrusion. Very skillfully done in a few minutes. One thing I noticed today is that Profulla does a lot of work about the place, but I suppose he just does the difficult bits-the modern figures and the large heads-just like Prodip.
In the Secondary Bengali Reader under puja it says that king Suratha ( + Vaisya Samadhi) started his Basanti puja in the satya yuga, Ramachandra in the treta yuga started the autumnal puja called akalbodhana. In the madhya yuga, 1580 AD, a king from north Bengal called Kangshunarayan performed Durga puja with great pomp. His rivals, Raja Kushumbhi and Jagatnarayan performed Basanti Durga puja.
27th September 1980 - Kalighat
29th September 1980 - Kalighat
30th September 1980 - Kumartuli and Kalighat