Kolkata sets new trend by organising virtual Ganesh Chaturthi

Setting a replacement trend a community puja organiser within the city will organise a virtual Ganpati festival this year in sight of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The club, which organises one among the most important community Ganaptai pujas in West Bengal, has junked its plans for a theme-based festival and opted to travel virtual with the contagion and its protocol in mind.

Salt Lake Yuvak Sangha president Anindya Chatterjee told PTI that the choice to not erect a marquee nor allow any visitor was taken after the second phase of lockdown was announced.

“We decided that virtual darshan would be the sole alternative to avert any threat of contamination instead of not holding the puja in the least this year,” he added.

The puja falls on August 22 this year. No total lockdown has been announced thereon date though there’ll be lockdown in containment zones till August 31. Parts of Salt Lake where the club is situated falls within the containment zone.

“We don’t need to require away the enjoyment of festivities of the people, their joy of attending the arati or offering puja.

We will stream the rituals of our Ganesha puja survive Facebook which may be seen on mobiles and smart TV screens at homes,” he said.

In keeping with this, the theme of the club’s Ganesha puja in its eleventh year is ‘Grihokone Vinayak’ (Ganapati at home), he said.

“Every year, we come up with different themes for the puja and put up grand pandals besides a km-long illumination by experts from Chandernagore. This year in sight of things we’ve plans to place up an enormous screen near the PNB Island crossing in Salt Lake in order that people can see the idol maintaing the social distancing norm. we’ll plow ahead with this only after discussing with local administration,” Chatterjee said.

The idol, which is being made by a clay modeller from Kumartuli area within the city, are going to be kept during a hall. Only the priest and really few members of the puja committee, who will assist him within the rituals, are going to be allowed in. they’re going to wear masks and frequently sanitise their hands.

“There are going to be live streaming of the rituals. The inauguration, darshan, aarti, pushpanjali and every one other rituals are often seen by logging in to the Facebook page of the puja committee,” Chatterjee said.