- Monday, March 10, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Hours after Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s longest-serving monarch, passed away at Balmoral Castle in Scotland at the age of 96, organisers of a Durga Puja in faraway Kolkata in the Indian state of West Bengal decided to dedicate their puja this year to the late queen by designing the Durga idol after her.
According to a report by Bengali daily Anandabazar Patrika, the organisers of ‘Chaltabagan Sarbojanin’ Durga Puja decided to honour Queen Elizabeth in such a unique way. This year, the puja is completing 78 years, only eight more than the queen’s 70 years of reign, and the organising committee thought it would be a perfect tribute to the late monarch.
Every year, Durga Puja organisers in Kolkata come up with various themes based, some on current affairs, to draw maximum viewers as they compete to win awards.
This year, Durga Puja in Bengal has become even more special as in December last year, the 16th Committee of Unesco for safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage inscribed Bengal’s biggest festival on the representative list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity at a meeting in Paris.
The puja celebration started on September 1 this year following an announcement of the state government led by chief minister Mamata Banerjee. A mega rally was held on that day as a sign of gratitude to the Unesco for giving the festival a heritage tag.
The puja officially takes place in the first week of October this year.
