Because this year, Hindu organisations including the VHP, have already urged puja organisers to return to “traditional” practices and keep non-vegetarian food away from puja pandals. The VHP has stressed that it is not demanding a blanket ban on non-vegetarian food. But the advisory nevertheless opened a very large — and very Bengali — can of fish curry.
There have also been demands and political discussions around restrictions on theme-based puja celebrations and how committees should conduct themselves. So, before Durga had even arrived, Bengal had already accumulated instructions on what could be eaten, what could be displayed and how puja should look.
Then came Bageshwar Baba, or Dhirendra Krishna Shastri. During a recent visit to Bengal, Shastri appealed to people not to sell non-vegetarian food around Durga idols and urged Bengali Hindus to observe Navratri. His comments triggered another controversy, particularly because fish and meat during Durga Puja are hardly some recent Bengali rebellion against tradition.
The debate soon became less about faith and more about who gets to write the puja menu. And there was an amusing complication for those trying to prescribe it. Even Bhattacharya did not appear particularly enthusiastic about telling Bengalis what they should put on their plates.
Which brings us back to the eleventh arm. For a political establishment that presents itself as the guardian of Hindu tradition and religious culture, the sight of a government advertisement giving Durga an extra arm is almost too good a piece of political comedy to waste.
The message, after all, has been consistent: respect tradition, preserve tradition, do not distort tradition.
And then the official artwork apparently went: One, two, three… eight, nine, ten… Hang on. Who invited the eleventh hand?
The government did move quickly to correct the advertisement. But even the correction created its own visual problem: removing the extra arm took away the symmetry of the image. Neither was there room for an important element that she traditionally carries — a conch shell.
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