Pujo 2005 : Kallol

Durga Puja is here (at least for Kallol), and our car is not. To make matters worse, Kallol is 90 miles from our new home in Long Island, and the weatherman predicts rain - which is confirmed by a look out of the window. On the other side, this would be Soma's first Durga Puja in the US, so staying put at home is out of the question.

Bring Enterprise Rent-a-Car to the rescue. Car picked up, Soma decked up in her new sari (still running from her wedding loot) and shiny jewelry, and I fished out a sorta-new kurta set from my box of "Traditional Clothes" - a box that comes out maybe twice a year - we sure were ready for the pujas. Definitely more than the folks back home, since it was only "sashti" in India, and "Shaptami" + "Maha Ashtami" as per the Kallol schedule.

In the course of the next 10 hours or so, we drove more than 220 miles in all, attended the anjali, had some biryani and fake fish fries from the food court, jumped over to Oak Tree Road for some quick grocery shopping, came back to Kallol right on time for the dinner (mangshor jhol, khichhudi, chutney, sweets - how can anyone who paid $50 per head go without it?), saw the first half of the cultural festival, jumped back to Oak Tree Road to buy an entire goat leg for future use (Iselin Halal), and bought a lot of norom pak mishti from Quality Sweets.

[FYI: Kallol's website is http://www.kallol.com/, with venue directions here.]