yet another year of maddox....

as tansh as people insist i am, i have always enjoyed the pujas like a typical baangali. Living opposite maddox...it's been the epicentre of all my revelry all these years...and its been a time when family has been of prime importance and friends have become a part of it only recently. In my childhood( man...i feel old sayin that!) maddox square used to be a lot different. it always had its own charm of the carnival like atmosphere but it wasnt filled with leering guys desperately looking to "make friendship" or cheaply dressed women making maximum use of their five days of freedom. Of course part of maddox's charm is checking out people, passing judgement on what who is wearing, eat lots of junk food, enjoy a lot of adda... And my family used to have one of the biggest circles in the park..filled with chatterbox teenagers, wide-eyed kids and relaxing adults...all just feeling happy to be together and right at home. Of course, once ina while...especially on Navami night we would have a grown-ups vs baccha log antakshari and each side would sing valiantly till our voices were sore and no songs left to sing. Another favourite was buying a huge balloon (you know those big round ones) and playing D-O-N-K-E-Y with it. Even a female dominated family like mine used to hang around till pretty late at night without being too worried about being accosted by creeps because after a certain peak time, it used to be pretty much para crowd who were quite protective.

But if you've been to maddox in the past 2-3 years and share my sort of mindset (i.e. you arent one of the aforementioned attention seeking, grotesquely dressed females or lecherous men), you probably have been very put off. Of course you still turn up coz u know maddox square is like orkut.....you're bound to run into a million people u know and (dis)like and a million more you haven't met in ages but while, before and after you're there....you keep complaining about how 'cheap' the crowd is. I agree. I am one of you. Everyone who knows me knows that even if they have no company at maddox, they can just give me a ring. I crib and crib and crib...but i still keep going back.

Of late I hear a lot of my friends saying that "I don't care about pujo anymore" or "Who the hell cares?" or "I am sooooooooo not looking forward to pujo." That's depressing. It did depress me quite a bit. Please don't depress me. I'm like a kid when it comes to pujo. I really look forward to it and I have no qualms about saying it.
I love pujo.
I love the happiness
.the new clothes and shoes
.the smiles
.the multi coloured, story-telling lights
.the music
.the smell of dhunuchi
.the sound of dhak.
.the beauty of the protima, especially when you see it for the first time on Shashti after a whole year
.the zest with which youngsters seem to WANT to embrace their culture and traditions
.the tear-filled eyes because of the smoke during aaroti
.the 108 diyas all lit together for shondhi aaroti
.the smell of puchka, pizza, kochuri aloodum, ice cream and jhal muri all wafting in the air to make you even hungrier than you would normally feel
.the numerous colourful photos taken
.the unfailing enthusiasm with which people will go out thakur dekhte come rain hail or storm (literally!)
.i love the pujo and i can never explain why.

so yet another year at maddox and i will complain again i'm sure. but i also know that i would be like fish out of water without maddox during pujo....

pujo IS maddox square for me.