Chol Jabo Toke Niye: Khidirpur Pally Saradiya's 85th Year Begins Where Asia's First Electric Tram Once Ran

 On the morning of 27th March 1902, Asia's first electric tram pulled out of Esplanade and rattled its way down to Kidderpore, and a small stretch of South Kolkata found itself written into transport history almost by accident. More than twelve decades later, that same stretch of the city has decided to remember it on purpose. On 15th August this year, Khidirpur Pally Saradiya marked the start of its 85th Sharadiya season with a khuti puja and theme-banner unveiling built entirely around the idea of the journey — and they named it, fittingly, Chol Jabo Toke Niye: "Come, I'll take you along."

A Banner That Reads Like an Old Ticket Drawer

Most theme banners try to impress you with scale. This one tries to make you stop and read. Set against a sepia wash of old Calcutta building facades and faded postal stamps, the Durgotsab 2026 banner uses two oversized vintage tram tickets — the kind printed by The Calcutta Tramways Company Limited, complete with UP and DOWN fare columns — as its central visual anchor, with the theme title চল যাবো তোকে নিয়ে stacked between them in bold, marquee-style red-and-white lettering, almost styled like a hand-painted tram destination board. It isn't an abstract concept dressed up in Bengali script; it's a literal, legible piece of transport nostalgia, the kind that anyone who has ever held onto a tram ticket instead of throwing it away will recognise instantly.

The banner unveiling itself was a proper neighbourhood gathering rather than a closed-door ceremony. Committee members, local well-wishers, children, and elders posed together in front of a green heritage-style building draped in coloured light for the occasion — a fitting backdrop for a theme that is, at its heart, about the buildings and byways this locality has always called home.

What "Come, I'll Take You Along" Actually Means

here's a quiet generosity in choosing a line like Chol Jabo Toke Niye as a Puja theme. It isn't a boast about scale or spectacle; it's an invitation, phrased the way an old friend might phrase it before a familiar route — the kind of line a conductor's bell used to punctuate on the Esplanade–Kidderpore line for over a century. Read against Khidirpur's own history with the tram, the theme starts to feel less like a design choice and more like a tribute: the neighbourhood is, in effect, offering to carry its visitors down the same route the city's very first electric tram once travelled, except this time the destination is a pandal rather than a terminus.

It also arrives at a moment when Kolkata's trams themselves are fighting for survival, with services scaled back to a handful of heritage routes and court battles underway over their future. Whether intentional or not, a Puja theme built from tram tickets, in the very locality where the tram line began, reads as a small act of preservation — the kind Kolkata's Puja committees have always been good at, keeping a piece of the city's memory alive through clay, cloth, and colour long after the original has faded from daily use.

The Morning the Khuti Went Up

Khuti Puja is where intention turns into ritual, and Khidirpur Pally Saradiya's version, held on Hemchandra Street, had the warmth of a well-attended family occasion rather than a formal event. The central bamboo pole stood wrapped almost entirely in a dense, alternating spiral of orange and yellow marigolds, a soft pink lotus tucked in near its base — the kind of garlanding that takes patient hands and a fair amount of morning marigold. Around it, the venue had been dressed for the season with strings of warm fairy lights overhead, a bright blue-and-yellow umbrella shading part of the gathering, and silver-and-gold balloon clusters marking out the celebratory mood against a stage backdrop still carrying last year's "Durgotsab" lettering.

Committee members in red and maroon kurtas gathered close around the khuti as the ritual was performed, the kind of unhurried, unposed cluster of people that tells you this is a community that has done this together for a very long time — this year simply being the 85th time.

Eighty-Five Years on Hemchandra Street

A number like 85 sits in an interesting spot — well past any claim to being a "new" Puja, not yet at the century mark that turns an anniversary into a citywide event, but old enough that it has quietly outlasted the tramline that inspired this year's theme in its original, everyday form. Khidirpur itself has been part of Calcutta Tramways' operational map since as far back as the 1880s, according to historical records of the network, which means Khidirpur Pally Saradiya's own 85 years overlap almost entirely with the decades the tram spent as this locality's everyday lifeline — carrying dockworkers, students, and families up and down roads that this Puja committee has watched change shape for nearly a century. You can read more about that broader tramway history on Wikipedia's Calcutta Tramways Company page, which documents the line's journey from horse-drawn carriages to the electric network that once ran straight through this neighbourhood.

The Hands Behind Chol Jabo Toke Niye

A theme this specific needs a team that understands nuance, and Khidirpur Pally Saradiya has assembled a familiar, capable set of collaborators to carry it forward. The overall creative direction belongs to Debjyoti Jana, while the idol itself is being shaped by Soumen Pal, whose work in Kolkata's murti-making circles is well regarded for detailed, expressive craftsmanship. Lighting design rests with Dipankar Dey, and the pandal's soundscape — no small detail for a theme built around motion and journeys — is being composed by Ashu Chakraborty. Together, this is the team responsible for turning a banner full of tram tickets into a walk-through experience by the time Ashtami arrives.

From Bamboo Post to Pandal Floor

With the khuti planted and Hemchandra Street's theme now public, the real construction work begins. Somewhere in the workshops of Kumartuli, Soumen Pal's vision for this year's Durga idol will start taking shape from clay, straw, and bamboo — the same slow, layered process that gives every idol in the city its final form months before a single visitor sees it. We track that entire journey through the season on our Khuti Puja 2026 coverage, following committees across North and South Kolkata as their bamboo poles turn into finished pandals.

Where to Follow Along

For real-time updates as Chol Jabo Toke Niye moves from banner to built pandal, Khidirpur Pally Saradiya's official Facebook page remains the best place to watch the season unfold. And if you were at the khuti puja yourself, or have photographs from Hemchandra Street you'd like to share, our Contact page is always open — some of our best ground reports start with a reader's photograph.

For now, the khuti stands garlanded on Hemchandra Street, the tram tickets are up on the banner, and Khidirpur Pally Saradiya's 85th year has, officially, begun its journey.

Image Credit: Khidirpur Pally Saradiya Committee / Pujor Poribar