Saraswati Puja — Vasant Panchami — is the day Kolkata puts on its best clothes and goes to pray for brains. The goddess of knowledge, music, and arts is worshipped in every school, college, and household. Students place their books and instruments at her feet.
The visual is yellow: marigolds everywhere, students in yellow and white, the pandals draped in spring colours. It’s the first festival of the Bengal calendar year that feels like the cold is finally leaving.
What happens
Every educational institution has a puja. The college pujas are the ones to visit — Presidency University, Jadavpur, Scottish Church — where the combination of student energy and elaborate pandal decoration makes for a genuinely festive atmosphere.
The day before, students traditionally don’t study — their books are placed before the goddess’s idol. The day after is when the idol is immersed and studying resumes.
Where to be
College Street in the morning — the bookshop para comes alive with puja decoration and the specific atmosphere of a neighbourhood that treats books as a way of life. The Presidency University campus puja is one of the most atmospheric in the city.
The food
Khichuri (spiced rice and lentils) is the prasad. Every puja has it, it’s free, and it’s the best khichuri you’ll eat all year — there’s something about communal cooking that improves the calibration.