A UNESCO-recognised heritage, an extraordinary festival of art and community, and a city that has more to show the world than it often manages to communicate.
On 10 October
2026, Mahalaya brought an unusually large spectacle to Kolkata’s Eden Gardens.
Thousands of dhakis, music, dance, fireworks and a reported display of 3,000
drones formed part of the government-organised Uma Agamani programme,
attended by a crowd reported at around 40,000. The event brought together two
expressions of contemporary Bengal: the familiar force of the dhak and the
technological ambition of a large public production. (Times
of India report; News
On AIR report).
It was an
impressive way to announce the arrival of the festive season. It also left me
thinking about a larger question. When a festival can command such a gathering,
bring together so many artists and transform the mood of an entire city, why
are we not doing even more to introduce its cultural riches to travellers from
across India and around the world?
Kolkata’s Durga Puja is not short of grandeur, inventiveness or human participation. What it needs is a wider and more sustained conversation about what it offers, why it matters, and why someone who has never visited Bengal should consider planning a journey around it.
A UNESCO
recognition that deserves to travel further
Explore
Bengal's Cultural Heritage
Readers
interested in the artistic traditions, history and cultural heritage of Bengal
may enjoy exploring books on Indian art, Kolkata's history and the
craftsmanship behind Durga Puja.
Durga Puja: With Notes and Illustrations : Amazon India
The Making of Goddess Durga in Bengal: Art, Heritage and the Public: Amazon India
In 2021, UNESCO
inscribed Durga Puja in Kolkata on its Representative List of the Intangible
Cultural Heritage of Humanity. It was an important recognition of a tradition
whose significance extends well beyond the worship of the goddess. UNESCO’s
description acknowledges the collaborative work of artisans and designers, the
creation of large installations and pavilions, the role of traditional
drumming, and the unusual way in which public celebration brings people
together.
The distinction
matters. This is recognition of living cultural heritage, not a declaration
that Kolkata’s Durga Puja is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its value lies in
the traditions, skills, social relationships and artistic practices that
communities continue to sustain.
Read UNESCO’s
official entry on Durga Puja in Kolkata.
Yet an official
recognition, however prestigious, does not automatically make a cultural
tradition a familiar destination on the international travel calendar. That
requires continued work: good storytelling, reliable visitor information,
international media coverage, partnerships with cultural institutions and
travel organisations, and images and films that do justice to what actually
happens on the ground.
I would hesitate
to say that Durga Puja is unknown outside Bengal. It is certainly not. Bengalis
living elsewhere in India and abroad carry the festival with them, and its
spectacular pandals attract considerable attention every year. The West Bengal
Tourism Department itself describes the festival as a major cultural attraction
drawing millions of visitors.
The more
defensible argument is that Durga Puja has the potential to reach a much
wider audience than the one already familiar with it. UNESCO recognition
should be a beginning for that work, not the end of it.
When an entire
city becomes an exhibition
Many festivals
have a principal venue, a procession route or a programme of performances.
Kolkata’s Durga Puja has all these elements in different forms, but its most
distinctive quality is the way the celebration occupies the city.
A neighbourhood
road becomes an approach to an architectural installation. A familiar crossing
acquires a different appearance under elaborate lighting. A community club that
remains largely unnoticed during the rest of the year becomes the centre of a public
gathering. Visitors walk from one locality to another, comparing designs,
waiting in queues, listening to the dhak and discovering the extraordinary
range of ideas that can be expressed through a temporary structure.
Some pandals draw
on temple architecture or traditional crafts; others take their inspiration
from social questions, contemporary art, regional materials or subjects far
removed from conventional religious imagery. Their creators work with space,
texture, colour, light and movement. The work is assembled for a short season,
admired by thousands and eventually dismantled.
There is something remarkable about an artistic undertaking that accepts impermanence from the beginning. The pavilion is not built to remain as a permanent monument. Its success lies partly in the experience it creates while it exists.
Temporary architecture, lasting impressions: Durga Puja pandals turn artistic ideas into public spaces that visitors can enter, examine and experience.
This is one reason
why I believe Durga Puja deserves a more prominent place in discussions of
cultural travel. A visitor does not have to be Bengali or Hindu to appreciate
the design of a pavilion, the skill of an artisan, the discipline of a group
performance or the atmosphere of a crowded city celebrating a shared event.
Sensitivity towards religious observance is essential, of course, but cultural
appreciation need not depend on belonging to the community whose festival one
is witnessing.
The people behind
the spectacle
It is easy to
photograph a finished pandal. It takes more effort to tell the story of the
people who made it possible.
Long before
Mahalaya, artisans in places such as Kumartuli begin work on clay images of
Durga and her family. The work involves preparing materials, shaping figures,
allowing layers to dry, refining details and applying colour. Elsewhere,
designers, painters, carpenters, metalworkers, electricians, fabricators and
decorators are engaged in the creation of the pandals and their lighting.
Dhakis prepare their drums, performers rehearse, and neighbourhood organisers
coordinate the many practical demands of a public festival.
The completed
structure is what a visitor first sees. Behind it lies a chain of skills and
livelihoods that deserves to be documented with equal care.
A stronger
cultural tourism programme would make it easier for visitors to learn about
this work. Guided walks could introduce the history and techniques behind
selected installations. Visits to artisan workshops could be arranged with the
makers’ consent, at suitable times and without interfering with their work.
Short films could follow the process from raw clay and preliminary sketches to
the completed idol or pavilion, with proper credit given to the people
responsible.
Such documentation
would do more than make attractive travel content. It would help visitors
understand that a festival of this scale is also an economy of skilled labour,
much of it undertaken by people whose names rarely accompany the photographs
that circulate online.
The para Puja and
the mega-event: why should they compete?
The Eden Gardens
Mahalaya celebration raises another question worth considering. Can traditional
neighbourhood celebrations retain their character while the festival embraces
large-scale, technologically ambitious productions?
I do not think
these approaches need to be placed on opposite sides of an argument.
The neighbourhood para
Puja has a social intimacy that no stadium production can reproduce. Residents
know the people who organise the celebration. Contributions are collected,
responsibilities are shared, familiar faces return year after year, and the
pandal becomes a meeting point for people whose lives may otherwise follow very
different routines. Its importance may lie as much in these relationships as in
the finished structure.
A mega-event
offers something different. It can bring artists from across the state into a
single programme, create a concentrated spectacle and attract attention from
broadcasters, photographers and audiences who might not otherwise follow
regional cultural events. The recent Eden Gardens programme demonstrated the
possibilities of combining traditional performance with contemporary
production.
The danger is not
scale in itself. The danger would be allowing scale to become the main measure
of cultural importance.
A drone formation
can photograph beautifully from above; it cannot replace the experience of
walking down a narrow lane and finding a small neighbourhood Puja whose makers
have transformed inexpensive materials with imagination. A large concert can
attract thousands of spectators; it cannot recreate the conversations, local
histories and everyday loyalties that sustain a community celebration.
Both have their
place. The larger challenge is to ensure that the spectacular events direct
attention towards the festival in its full variety, rather than becoming its
only public face.
Can Kolkata become a destination for the world’s cultural traveller?
Consider the
international attention given to events such as Rio’s Carnival, Venice’s masked
celebrations and London’s Notting Hill Carnival. These festivals have different
histories, audiences and cultural purposes. Durga Puja should not have to
imitate any of them, nor does it need to claim superiority over them.
The useful
comparison concerns visibility.
How does a city
make its annual cultural celebration sufficiently recognisable that a traveller
in another country thinks of visiting specifically for that experience? How
does it turn a festival that is already extraordinary for local residents into
a clearly presented, welcoming and well-planned destination for people
unfamiliar with it?
Kolkata has many
of the ingredients. The city offers a distinctive urban setting, layers of
history, varied food traditions, music, theatre, literature, traditional
neighbourhoods and a long association with the arts. Durga Puja brings many of
these interests together in a relatively concentrated period. Visitors can
explore the pandals while also discovering the city’s markets, museums, old
houses, riverside spaces and food culture.
The opportunity is
not to package every corner of Kolkata into a tourist attraction. It is to help
visitors understand the city beyond the itinerary of the most photographed
pandals.
International
travel publications, documentary filmmakers, cultural correspondents,
photographers and responsible tour operators could be invited to engage with
the festival well before it begins. Stories about the people who design and
construct the installations could appear alongside practical visitor guides.
Short, well-produced films could explain the traditions, the artistic choices
and the social organisation behind the celebration, rather than presenting a
succession of dazzling night shots without context.
There is a
practical side to this ambition. Travellers need reliable information about
routes, transport, accommodation, crowd conditions, accessibility, safety,
toilets, food, photography restrictions and environmentally responsible
behaviour. International visitors may need multilingual guidance and a clearer
explanation of the festival calendar and its customs.
A useful official
platform could bring together verified itineraries, public transport advice,
accessible routes, artisan experiences and information about the work of local
cultural organisations. It could help visitors plan a manageable experience
rather than attempting too many crowded destinations in a short period.
Kolkata does not
need to promise that every pandal can be visited easily or that crowds are part
of an effortless holiday. It needs to tell visitors honestly what the
experience involves and help them make informed choices.
Planning
Your Durga Puja Visit?
A
little preparation can make long evenings of pandal-hopping more comfortable.
From practical walking shoes and compact umbrellas to power banks and other
travel essentials, it is worth preparing for Kolkata's busy festive streets.
Comfortable Walking Shoes For Women: White Pink: Flipkart
Comfortable Walking Shoes For Men: Flipkart
Compact Umbrella: Flipkart
Power Bank: Flipkart
A carnival, but one with its own character
Durga Puja can
fairly be described as a city-wide cultural carnival, provided we remember that
its religious meaning remains fundamental to many of its participants. It is a
public celebration of extraordinary visual scale, but its character is also
shaped by devotion, family traditions, community effort and the anticipation
that builds over months.
The festival
culminates in the immersion of the idols. The West Bengal Tourism Department
refers to the immersion celebrations as a carnival in their own right. The
movement from temporary construction to worship and finally to immersion gives
the season a structure that is distinctly its own.
The international
presentation of Durga Puja should preserve this complexity. It should not
reduce the festival to a spectacle for cameras, nor should it treat religious
observance as an obstacle to tourism. A visitor can be welcomed as an observer
and learner while the community retains the right to determine how its
traditions are practised and represented.
Responsible
cultural tourism would also consider the environmental cost of mass gatherings,
traffic congestion, waste and pressure on neighbourhood residents. The goal
should be to distribute the benefits of tourism more widely while ensuring that
the festival remains liveable for the people whose city it is.
A larger audience
is valuable only if it is accompanied by care.
UNESCO recognition
must lead to more than a label
The UNESCO
inscription gives Bengal a powerful point of entry into conversations about
intangible cultural heritage. But recognition has limited value if it is simply
added to posters and promotional material.
The next step
should be a sustained effort to tell the festival’s stories throughout the
year. A visitor who discovers a short film about Kumartuli in January should be
able to find reliable information about visiting Kolkata in October. A cultural
journalist who reports on a particular pandal should be able to identify its
designers and artisans. A traveller who wants to understand the festival’s
history should have access to thoughtful reading material, guided walks and
well-researched accounts rather than depending entirely on social media
snippets.
The festival also
offers an opportunity for more meaningful exchanges between artists in Bengal
and elsewhere. Exhibitions, talks, documentaries and workshops could introduce
the techniques and ideas behind Puja installations to audiences who may never be
able to travel to Kolkata. Such initiatives would complement the in-person
experience rather than substitute for it.
There is no need
to exaggerate Bengal’s achievements or to insist that the world has ignored
them. Durga Puja already draws enormous crowds and enjoys significant
recognition. The more constructive question is how to give the festival’s
cultural significance a wider, more durable international presence, one that
benefits its makers and host communities as much as it attracts visitors.
Let the world discover Kolkata on its own terms
I would like to
see more travellers arrive in Kolkata because they have heard about its Durga
Puja, stayed long enough to understand its neighbourhoods, spoken to its
artisans, explored its food and music, and left with an appreciation of the
city that extends beyond the photographs on their phones.
I would like to
see the festival covered not only as breaking news about record crowds or the
unveiling of an elaborate pandal, but also through intelligent documentaries,
travel essays, interviews with designers, accounts of neighbourhood histories
and photographs that reveal the human work behind the spectacle.
The recent Eden
Gardens event offers a timely reminder that traditional culture can command a
remarkable public audience when it is presented with ambition. But Bengal’s
cultural wealth does not begin at a stadium entrance, and it does not end when
a drone display disappears from the sky.
It is also found
in the artisan’s workshop, the neighbourhood committee meeting, the drummer
preparing his instrument, the family making its annual visit, the volunteers
guiding a queue and the small pandal whose creators have worked for months
without expecting international attention.
Durga Puja has
received UNESCO recognition. The challenge now is to convert that recognition
into lasting cultural curiosity, thoughtful travel and a wider appreciation of
what Bengal creates.
Kolkata does not
need to become another city’s version of a global carnival. It needs to help
the world recognise the singular festival it already has.
A note for readers planning a visit: For official information about Durga Puja and West Bengal, begin with the West Bengal Tourism Department’s Durga Puja page and UNESCO’s heritage listing. Check current transport, accommodation and local advisories before making travel arrangements.
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About the Author
Susmita
Mukherjee is an
Indian author and former teacher at Army Public School, based in Kolkata,
India. Her writing explores the intersections of labour, resilience,
displacement, family and human tenderness, often illuminating the quiet
complexities of relationships and the lives shaped by circumstance. A trained
Indian classical vocalist with a background in IT education and hospitality,
she brings precision, empathy and a keen eye for human detail to her work.
Her
stories and other writings have appeared in Indian Literature (Sahitya
Akademi), Muse India, Intrepidus Ink, Flash Fiction Magazine,
Fractured Lit, Sky Island Journal, NUNUM Magazine, BULL
Lit Mag, Kitaab, Setu, Epistemic Literary Magazine, Gulmohur
Quarterly, Fictive Dream, Literally Stories, Literary Yard,
Shabdodweep Web Magazine and other journals. She won second prize in a Flash
Fiction Magazine contest and received second prizes in the Inkspot Story
Competition 2025–26 and the 3 Minute Arts Story Writing Competition 2025–26.
Her
debut poetry collection, When the Earth Sang of Us: A Meditation on Love,
Life and Nature, is available worldwide.
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