On Dashami the city says goodbye. After sindoor khela the idols are carried through the streets to the ghats and lowered into the river, with the dhak playing and the crowd calling out that she will come again next year. Then, as the streets fall quiet, a second and gentler festival begins. It is called Bijoya, and it goes on for weeks.
The day of victory
Bijoya means victory. Dashami marks the goddess’s victory over Mahishasura, and in much of north India the same day is Dussehra, Rama’s victory over Ravana. In Bengal, once the immersion is over, people come home and greet one another with two words: Shubho Bijoya.
Pranam, kolakuli and sweets
Bijoya is a festival of greetings. The young touch the feet of their elders, the pranam, and receive their blessings. Friends and equals embrace, the kolakuli, holding each other first on one side and then the other. And everyone eats sweets: no Bijoya visit ends without a plate of narkel naru, nimki and something from the neighbourhood sweet shop.
In the weeks after Dashami, families visit relatives and friends they may not have seen all year, to do Bijoya. The visits used to be essential, and even now an elder who has not had a Bijoya greeting from a younger relative will usually notice.
Bijoya letters
Before the telephone, Bijoya came by post. Children and grandchildren wrote letters or postcards to elders who lived elsewhere, offering their pranam on paper, and the elders wrote back with their blessings. Many families kept them for years. Today the greetings arrive on the phone, but the words are the same.
Lakshmi comes next
On the full moon after Dashami comes Lakshmi Puja, the Kojagari Lakshmi Puja that many Bengali families hold at home. Doorways and floors are painted with alpona, often with small footprints leading into the house so that the goddess of fortune will find her way in. The name is usually read as a question, who is awake?, because she is said to visit that night and bless those who stay up for her.
Then, on the new moon that follows, comes Kali Puja, on the night of Diwali. The festival season is not over yet.