There’s no puja without food
in the city on Sunday. (ST)
The elaborate celebrations of Durga Puja have turned the city into a happy place in the last few days.
Wherever you go, you are bound to come across captivating decorations, festivities and eloquently dressed children and adults. In our city, however, the celebration of Durga Puja becomes more prominent through the celebration of food. While people pay their tributes to the fierce Hindu Goddess on these four grand days of celebration, they also make it a point to relish the gazillion delicious delights that this occasion has to offer. People munch on their food as they stand outside food stalls or as they enjoy the dance and song performances brought to by the puja committees.
Seeing people enjoy delicacies as they huddle in groups is a unique sight and yet another highlight of this autumn festival. After a long day or evening of pandal-hopping, you can pick and choose your food and relish it with your friends and family. In many of these pandals, the committees even prepare free meals for devotees on a large scale, signifying thus the relationship food shares with these sacred festivities.
Overtakes are here to stay
Everyone is complaining about traffic but little do the ones that complain know that they themselves add to traffic woes when they’re on the roads beleaguered by beelines of vehicles.
But that is either involuntary for most or simply due to peer pressure.
Police recently claimed that overtaking was one of the main reasons for the traffic snarls. But interestingly, mostly government vehicles and sometimes police’s too are seen overtaking through chock-a-block traffic.
It is no surprise to see ‘’ML 01…” and “ML 02…” vehicles whooshing past standstill traffic making outrageous overtakes, which only worsens the situation. It is nonetheless understandable that government vehicles need to rush at times to reach certain locations on time.
On Friday afternoon, when the city witnessed massive traffic jam, a government vehicle was seen making overtakes on the stretch of the road from Anjalee petrol pump. The vehicle was using the siren too; and the glasses of the vehicle were tinted.
Behind it, there were several private vehicles following the government vehicle to get ahead of others in the queue.
Under such circumstances, the biggest question becomes — will the traffic police personnel dare to tell such vehicles not to overtake?