Dehatattwa to Debitattwa: Under Shibpur's Oldest Banyan, Nabarun Sangha's 97th Year Quietly Begins

There is a banyan tree on Sarat Chatterjee Road in Shibpur that has almost certainly seen more khuti pujas than most of the people standing under it this year have had birthdays. Its roots have dropped and thickened into the ground over decades, its canopy wide enough to shade an entire ceremony without a single tarpaulin sheet overhead. On the morning of 23rd August, that old tree did what it has likely done for the better part of a century — it stood watch as Nabarun Sangha planted its khuti and opened the 97th year of Bottola Sarbojanin Durgotsav.

There was no dramatic countdown, no viral reveal video. Just a garlanded bamboo pole, a circle of marigold on green matting, a handful of elders seated in plastic chairs under a printed backdrop, and a theme line that asks a genuinely interesting question before the festival has even properly begun: what happens when the body itself becomes the goddess?

The Khuti: A Pole That Tells Its Own Story

The most striking element sits roughly at the pole's midpoint: a bright red silhouette, unmistakably human in shape, arms raised and legs planted, rendered in the same stylised form you might find carved into a temple doorway. It is a deceptively simple image, and it is doing a lot of work. Directly above it, crowning the khuti, is a circular medallion carrying an illustrated image of the goddess, framed by a fresh spray of blue and apricot flowers and a fan of palm leaves. Read from bottom to top, the pole becomes a visual sentence — body first, then flower, then form, then divinity. It is, quite literally, dehatattwa rising into debitattwa.

"Dehatattwa to Debitattwa" — Reading the Theme

For a club stepping into its 97th year, choosing a philosophical theme over a purely visual spectacle is a telling decision. Ninety-seven years is not a round-number milestone the way a 75th or a 100th anniversary is, which makes it, in a strange way, more honest — a club simply continuing its work, unhurried by the pressure of a big anniversary number, and using the freedom of an "ordinary" year to explore an idea rather than build toward a photo-op. Expect this framing to surface again once the pandal and idol take shape closer to Puja, most likely in how the goddess's iconography is presented, and possibly in how the space around her is designed to draw the visitor's own body into the experience rather than keep them as a passive spectator.

The creative direction for this year's identity is credited to Shantanu and Arup, named on the announcement material alongside the club — a small detail, but one that matters. Naming the people behind a theme, rather than folding the credit anonymously into "the committee," is increasingly how Bengal's puja clubs are choosing to operate, and it's a habit worth applauding when it shows up.

Under the Banyan: What the Ceremony Actually Looked Like

Unlike pujas that stage their khuti ceremony against a hastily-rented canopy, Nabarun Sangha had the rarest kind of shade available — a mature banyan tree old enough to have become a landmark in its own right. The ceremony's backdrop banner, strung up between the tree's lower branches, carried the club's sponsors and the year "২০২৬" in bold type, while rows of plastic chairs held the club's senior members and guests, dressed in the crisp cottons and sarees that mark a formal Bengali morning ritual.

Off to one side, the essentials of the puja waited on the ground — a brass pancha-pradip lamp, a coconut wrapped in red cloth, small clay pots, and a woven bag, the unglamorous but essential tools without which no khuti puja is complete. Children in bright yellow and floral dresses moved between the seated elders and the pole itself, a reminder that these mornings are as much about a neighbourhood's youngest members absorbing a tradition as they are about ritual correctness. By the time the priest completed the rites, the khuti stood fully dressed — floral, human, divine — rooted in the same soil the pandal will occupy in the weeks ahead.

Why Khuti Puja Comes Before Everything Else

For readers newer to the rhythm of Durga Puja's preparatory calendar, khuti puja is the ceremony that formally inaugurates a club's season, weeks or months before the goddess herself arrives. A single bamboo pole — dressed, garlanded, and ritually worshipped — is driven into the exact ground where the pandal will eventually stand, treated for the duration of the ceremony as a placeholder for the Devi. Everything that follows — the bamboo scaffolding, the artisan's work at Kumartuli, the fabric and lighting — builds outward from this single planted pole.

Nabarun Sangha's ceremony on the 23rd of August places it within this year's dense calendar of similar rituals unfolding across Howrah and Kolkata, as club after club marks the formal opening of Durgotsav 1433. Readers tracking multiple clubs through the season can follow every confirmed date as it's added to our continuously updated Khuti Puja tracker.

Shibpur's Quiet Corner of Howrah's Puja Map

Shibpur doesn't often make it into the loudest conversations about Durga Puja's biggest budgets and most photographed pandals — that spotlight tends to fall on South Kolkata's marquee names. But lanes like Sarat Chatterjee Road are where the festival's older, steadier heartbeat actually lives: clubs that have run for close to a century not because of headline sponsorships, but because a neighbourhood has kept choosing, year after Bengali year, to gather under the same tree and plant the same pole. Ninety-seven years of continuity in Howrah means Nabarun Sangha has watched the city change shape around it — new buildings rising past its banyan's canopy, generations of families cycling through its committee chairs — while the ritual itself has stayed remarkably unchanged.

Quick Facts: Nabarun Sangha, Shibpur — 97th Year

What is this year's theme? Dehatattwa to Debitattwa (দেহতত্ব থেকে দেবীতত্ত্ব) — "from the truth of the body to the truth of the goddess."

When was the khuti puja held? Sunday, 23rd August 2026, at 11 AM.

Where is the venue? Sarat Chatterjee Road, Shibpur, Howrah — under the neighbourhood's landmark banyan tree, home to Bottola Sarbojanin Durgotsav.

Which year of Durga Puja is this? The 97th year of Nabarun Sangha's Durgotsav.

Who has designed this year's theme? Shantanu and Arup, credited on the club's official announcement material.

Where can I follow official updates? Through Nabarun Sangha's official Facebook page.

What Comes Next

With the khuti planted and the theme named, the next visible chapter of Nabarun Sangha's 97th year will most likely unfold at an idol-maker's workshop, where the Devi hinted at in that small medallion atop the pole begins her own journey from clay to finished form. Readers curious about exactly how that transformation happens — straw frame, layered clay, and finally the eyes that bring an idol to life at Chokkhu Daan — can follow our ongoing Kumartuli coverage tracking several of Bengal's workshops through the season.

We'll be keeping an eye on Sarat Chatterjee Road as Dehatattwa to Debitattwa moves from banner to bamboo to finished pandal — worth bookmarking if a theme built on old philosophy rather than a big anniversary number is the kind of puja story you enjoy following.

Banner and khuti puja visuals: Nabarun Sangha, Shibpur.