Evolution of The Community or Sarbajanin Puja
Initially the Puja was organised by affluent families since they had the money to organise the festival. During the late 19th and early 20th century, a burgeoning middle class, primarily in Calcutta, wished to observe the Puja. They created the community or Sarbojanin Pujas.
These Pujas are organised by a committee which represents a locality or neighbourhood. They collect funds called "chaanda" through door-to-door subscriptions, lotteries, concerts etc. These funds are pooled and used for the expenses of pandal construction, idol construction, ceremonies etc. The balance of the fund is generally donated to a charitable cause, as decided by the committee. Corporate sponsorships of the Pujas have gained momentum since the late 1990s. Major Pujas in Calcutta and in major metro areas such as Delhi and Chennai now derive almost all of their funds from corporate sponsorships. Community fund drives have become a formality.
Despite the resources used to organise a Puja, entry of visitors into the Pandal is always free. Pujas in Calcutta and elsewhere experiment with innovative concepts every year. Communities have created prizes for Best Pandal, Best Puja, and other categories.
Read more about this topic: Durga Puja
Famous quotes containing the words evolution of the, evolution of, evolution and/or community:
“Analyze theory-building how we will, we all must start in the middle. Our conceptual firsts are middle-sized, middle-distanced objects, and our introduction to them and to everything comes midway in the cultural evolution of the race.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“Historians will have to face the fact that natural selection determined the evolution of cultures in the same manner as it did that of species.”
—Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989)
“As a natural process, of the same character as the development of a tree from its seed, or of a fowl from its egg, evolution excludes creation and all other kinds of supernatural intervention.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“The people needed to be rehoused, but I feel disgusted and depressed when I see how they have done it. It did not suit the planners to think how they might deal with the community, or the individuals that made up the community. All they could think was, “Sweep it away!” The bureaucrats put their heads together, and if anyone had told them, “A community is people,” they would not have known what they were on about.”
—May Hobbs (b. 1938)