Ya Devi Sarva Bhutesu Shakti rupena samsthita I

Ya Devi Sarva Bhutesu Buddhi rupena samsthita I

Ya Devi Sarva Bhutesu Laxmi rupena samsthita I

Namestasyai II Namestasyai II Namestasyai II Namo Namah II

Kataka ra Dashahara (in Oriya) - Dussehra in Cuttack

As I promised before, I will upload all photos taken during this festival – Dussehra 2009 Cuttack. Let start with some story for now (You can skip the next paragraph for now, wrote in very few time, no time to write it carefully).

Dusshera is the greatest festival of Cuttack. Durga Puja started in the city by a Bengali family hundred years before. Then people of the city liked to celebrate this festival every year. They added Odia (Oriya) culture and specific Kataki (people and stuff of Cuttack) traditions to this Durga Puja. This made Dussehra of Cuttack unique. The design of idols of goddesses and gods are quite different from Kolkata, so as the decorations behind the idols (called medha in Oriya). Normally those decorations are made using colorful papers and other fancy stuffs. When that dazzle look beautiful. But people of Cuttack (Katakis) want to make it more beautiful and to have a signature of handicrafts of Cuttack. As Cuttack is famous to create beautiful filigrees of silver, why should not they show this art during Puja? So the artists of Cuttack created medha of silver filigrees – this new silver filigree medha called as Chandi Medha (Chandi means silver) (As per my knowledge, Shekh Bazar Puja Committee created first chandi medha, then followed by Choudhury Bazar Puja Committee. There are around 1o (I don’t have the solid information of this, will update later) Puja Mandaps have Chandi Medha. Some of them also fitted colorful LED lights inside those silver filigrees. In many Puja Mandaps, they use ornaments of silver and gold filigrees. Choudhry Bazar Puja Committee turned a part of the Chandi Medha to gold.

Due to rain I could not able to cover all 156+ places. I never cover so much places, but normally cover over 50 places. But this year the cyclonic rain make dussehra less interesting. I even could not go to Devi Gada (immersion place in river Kathajodi, where we immerse idols of Goddess Durga and other idols in river) to watch Vasani (immersion) festival. I have also taken some videos, uploaded one in YouTube and will upload others later.

The performance by Prince Dance Group at India’s Got Talent show has made people astonished. They made every Odia, every Indian to proud. Prince Dance Group consists of few daily laborer, who work at brick manufactures to provide some food for the family. They work hard in day and practice at night to keep their passion alive. And their hard work has ripen now. They are one the best talents in India and in the World. They don’t wear nicely designed costumes, because they don’t have money to spend on that, instead they spend around a hundred rupees and bit the requirement of costumes. This came as an advantage in their act. The creativity, the thought, the formation, the coordination among them are outstanding. That made Odisha, India and even the World to say “Jai ho! Prince Dance Group”.

When I saw “Susan Boyle” hitting top of the trending topic in twitter, I came to know about Britain’s Got Talent show. Then I started browsing all videos of that event in YouTube. I saw all performance of Susan Boyle, the popular British talent and Diversity, the winner of Britain’s Got Talent. I too love to watch Hollie Steel. But when I saw Prince Dance Group performs, I could only say, they are the best in the world. And they don’t need to hit trending topic in twitter to be knows as great, their great performance made them great.

I remember, once I watched a video at YouTube of the reality singing competition – Voice of India. On the introduction video of the singer, who represented Odisha, they said people of Odisha love art, love music, but people from the poor state can’t show their love sending vote via SMS (which costs Rs 3/-). Yes, that comment is true. There are people, who own a cellphone but they are capable to recharge only a Rs 10 voucher once in a month. I have money to send a SMS or Two like that, but I never send such SMS to vote for any contest. But how we expect the people of Odisha to vote spending Rs 3.00? So, I had a fear in my heart that despite of such good performance they might not be the winner. But first time in Odisha, I saw interest to vote among all Odia. Everyone was voting form Odisha. Even I voted and form my family all voted. I saw people doing worship at temple to see the Prince wining the show. Prince made it true, they win hearts of every Odia, every Indian and all admire of art from all over the world.

Here are their performance in the program…