Ya Devi Sarva Bhutesu Maatru rupena samsthita I
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.
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