Durga Puja 2025: How Bollywood Brought Bengal’s Festival Spirit To Mumbai

In the early ’70s, some prabashi (migrant) Bengalis who had settled in Mumbai’s western suburbs, Khar, Bandra and Santa Cruz, decided to organise a Durga puja of their own. Since Shakti Samanta was a big name, with a string of blockbusters like Kashmir Ki Kali, An Evening in Paris, Aradhana and Kati Patang, they reached out to him. Subsequently, the Notunpalli Sarbojanin Durgotsav Committee was formed with businessman Arun Banerjee as the first president, Shakti Samanta as the chief advisor and several Bollywood personalities, including filmmakers Pramod Chakraborty, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Basu Chatterjee and Basu Bhattacharya, actor Manik Dutta and composers Salil Chowdhury and RD Burman pitching in to host the first puja in 1972 at the Raosaheb Patwardhan Udyan, opposite Bandra’s National College. “It became an annual event and, over the years, came to be known as ‘Shakti Samanta’s Durga puja’ even though dad voluntarily never served as president of the committee,” smiles the filmmaker’s son, producer-director Ashim Samanta.

Shankar Maitra, nephew of the late actor Abhi Bhattacharya and the present general secretary, informs that in 53 years, there’s never been a break in the celebrations. Even during the Covid-19 pandemic, some of the committee members got a small idol and had a symbolic puja following all the SOPs. “The biggest threat came after the BMC (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation) turned Patwardhan Park into a public garden following which some neighbours moved court, objecting to us taking over the ground every year, for almost a fortnight, for a religious function. In 1987, we were allotted the open plot behind Balgandharva Rangmandir theatre which is one-fourth the size of the original venue, but the puja is celebrated with the same fanfare,” he asserts.

Maitra adds that bhog is served by members of the ‘Mukto Mela’, started by Salil Chowdhry, to 2,000-3,000 devotees for five days, from Panchami to Dashami, and local artistes are given a platform to showcase their talent alongside more established names. “Singers Abhijeet Bhattacharya and Kumar Sanu have performed at our puja, Mithun Chakraborty has served bhog, Sushmita Sen with her family is a regular visitor, and Bipasha Basu too has been spotted.”

Ashim, who never misses Ashtami Pushpanjali, points out that from the ’70s right upto the ’90s, Notunpolli was among the city’s biggest Durgotsavs. “But at the turn of the century, the Mukherjees’ puja took centrestage,” he acknowledges.

The North Bombay Sarbojanin Durga Puja was started in 1947 at the Sri Mandal Hall in Santa Cruz by film producer and founder of Filmistan Studio Sashadhar Mukherjee and 26 of his friends. “Back then, it was a small, gharua (homely) puja with everyone running to my Dada (grandfather), the financier, whenever money ran short. His six children—Rono, Joy, Deb, Shomu, Shibani and Subir—and their cousins and friends served bhog to devotees seated on mattresses on the floor, my Badi Maa (grandmother Sati Rani) insisting that they be treated as honoured guests. The tradition continues, her grandchildren, with members of the family and puja committee, serving a seven-course meal today. The menu changes every day during the five-day festivities and our guests are now seated on chairs, at a table, in an air-conditioned hall, which makes the long wait for the bhog worth it,” asserts Rono’s daughter, actress Sharbani Mukherji.

Earlier, she would accompany her mother, Samita, to the homes of family friends like Basu Chatterjee or take the chanda book to school and cajole her teachers for donations. Once Puja started, she would take a half-day holiday from studies and rush to the pandal with her siblings, Samrat and Siddharth, for pushpanjali. Their biggest responsibility then was to serve bhog with their cousins and partners-in-crime.“Now, I supervise the arrangements and assist our priest Ujjwal Bhattacharya with the rituals. It’s something Badi Maa taught my mother, her eldest daughter-in-law, who has been training me,” Sharbani shares.

Samrat is in charge of bringing the idols to the pandal and. Earlier, they would be physically carried to the stage, now they are forklifted. “My brother was trained by Ayan’s dad (Deb Mukherjee). Once Debu kaka entered the picture, he made the puja his annual magnum opus project, roping in sponsors and taking it to a larger venue like Hotel Tulip Star Hotel and serving the elaborate bhog with mineral water bottles. Even the idol got bigger and the décor more lavish, but Maa’s face, moulded by Nemai Pal and now his son Amit, hasn’t changed from what my Badi Maa had decided on,” reveals Sharbani. She never saw her grandmother, but has heard how despite being diabetic, Sati Rani would sit with a handi of rasgullas and  greet guests by popping a sweet into their mouths and one into her own.

Her brothers, Ashok Kumar, Kishore Kumar and Anoop Kumar, were roped in for donations and the evening’s entertainment, along with Hemant Kumar and Bappi Lahiri. “Now, Bappi kaka’s children, Reema and Bappa, along with Samrat and Raja (Rani’s brother) supervise the bhog distribution, while Ayan, with some of the others, decides the cultural programmes,” she informs.

Durga Puja has always been celebrated with much gusto by the Mukherjees, but this year, the family is mourning three deaths—Deb on March 14, Rono on May 28 and their sister Shibani on August 10. “I feel lost without them. Towards the end baba was undergoing dialysis, but he would go only after pushpanjali and bhog, returning after it was over. Debu kaka too despite being unwell was around even when the pandal was being erected. We will dedicate a night to the three pillars of our North Bengal Sarbojanin Durga Puja,” Sharbani says emotionally.

Meanwhile, Subir Mukherjee has taken over as president of the committee from Rono and Kajol’s children, Nysa and Yug, have been seen distributing flowers during Pushpanjali and serving bhog at earlier pujas. Rani too has been inculcating the same beliefs and values in her daughter Adira as the puja goes on, from one generation to the next. And with Abhijeet Bhattacharya, Kumar Sanu and singer-composer Pritam Chakraborty hosting their own pujas, Mumbai and Bollywood’s bond with Bengal and Maa Durga remains as strong as ever.