Eighty-Five and Still Rising: Singhi Park's "Mangalajatra" Banner Sets the Tone for a Milestone Sharodotsab
The banner itself, revealed on 2nd August, doesn't just carry a name and a date. It's built almost like a small piece of folk art in its own right, and it's worth slowing down on before we get to the khuti puja itself.
Eighty-Five Years on Dover Lane
Few community pujas in Kolkata can claim a history that stretches back to 1941, but Singhi Park is one of them. The puja was set rolling by Late Birendranath Mustafi and a small circle of local residents — Lalit Mohon Mitra, Nolini Mohon Shastri, Soumendu Nath Sinha, and Rajanath Banerjee among them — at a time when Ballygunge was a very different neighbourhood and Durga Puja itself was only just beginning to move from private courtyards into the shared, sarbojanin format that defines Kolkata's festival today. Eight and a half decades on, the club sits right beside the well-known Ekdalia Evergreen Club, in a pocket of South Kolkata that turns into one continuous festival corridor every October.
What's kept Singhi Park relevant across generations isn't nostalgia alone. The committee has built a reputation for pujas that take a genuine creative swing each year — from tributes to Bengal's cultural icons to pandals built around contemporary social themes — while never letting go of the ritual backbone that a puja this old is expected to carry. That balancing act between reinvention and reverence is exactly what this year's banner seems to be setting up again.
Reading the Banner: What "Mangalajatra" Signals
Roughly translated, Mangalajatra means an auspicious journey, or a journey undertaken for collective welfare — jatra carrying the sense of a procession or pilgrimage, and mangal the idea of good fortune, wellbeing, benediction. It's a title with room to breathe, which is often exactly what a committee wants before the full theme is unveiled closer to Puja.
The visual language of the banner backs this up. A deep, earthy backdrop is framed on one side by Warli-style tribal motifs — the stick-figure dancers, trees, and animals traditionally painted by the Warli community of Maharashtra — running down the border like a woven textile. Beside them sits a richly patterned red-and-white flag draped over the bamboo khuti itself, alongside a brass sculptural motif and a pair of Santhal dancers rendered in silhouette at the base, drums in hand. A brass ceremonial figure, a copper kalash dressed with coconut and mango leaves, and generous strings of marigold spiralling up the bamboo complete the frame. Read together, these aren't random festive flourishes — they hint at a theme rooted in India's indigenous and folk art traditions, journeys of communities and craftsmanship rather than purely mythological retelling. It's the kind of visual groundwork that usually gets fleshed out fully once the artisans at the workshop take over.
The committee's own words, printed just beneath the title, keep things simple and direct: the khuti puja marks the beginning of the Sharad festival, scheduled for the 9th of August at 10:30 in the morning, at Singhi Park.
What Happens on the 9th
Khuti puja, for anyone newer to Kolkata's Puja calendar, is the ceremonial planting of the first bamboo pole at the pandal site — a modest ritual by design, usually attended by committee members, a priest, and a handful of well-wishers, but symbolically enormous. It's the moment a season officially begins. No pandal exists yet, no idol has taken shape, but the ground has been claimed and blessed, and everything that follows over the next two months builds outward from that single pole.
For a club as established as Singhi Park, the khuti puja tends to be understated compared to the grandeur of the finished pandal — a quiet ceremony rather than a public spectacle — but its significance to the committee and its long-time volunteers is not understated at all. Many of the families who've been associated with this puja for decades treat the khuti puja morning as a genuine reunion, not just a ritual box to tick.
Why This Year Carries Extra Weight
Anniversaries in round or near-round numbers tend to nudge committees toward doing something a little more considered than usual, and 85 sits in exactly that territory — old enough to be a genuine milestone, without yet being the kind of centenary-adjacent number that demands an entirely retrospective theme. If the Warli and Santhal motifs on the banner are any indication, Singhi Park may be looking outward this year — toward India's folk and tribal art heritage — rather than purely inward at its own history. That's a theme choice that would sit comfortably with the club's track record of picking subjects with cultural weight rather than novelty for its own sake.
Of course, a banner and a khuti puja only ever tell you the opening line. The actual pandal design, the artisan collaborations, and the finished idol are still weeks away from being confirmed publicly, and Singhi Park has historically kept some of its bigger reveals for closer to Mahalaya.
More Than Ritual: The Community Spirit Angle
The committee's own description of this year's celebration leans hard on three words — tradition, devotion, and community spirit — and anyone who has spent a Puja evening on Dover Lane will tell you that's not just copy written for a Facebook bio. Singhi Park has, over the decades, built its identity as much around its cultural programming as its pandal artistry. Evenings through the Puja days typically bring in classical and folk performances, recitations, and community gatherings that turn the para into something closer to a neighbourhood cultural festival than a single-event pandal-hop stop. For the 85th year, expect that side of the celebration to be leaned into rather than scaled back — milestone anniversaries are usually when committees invite past patrons, honour long-serving volunteers, and generally treat the festival as a homecoming as much as a religious observance.
It's also worth remembering that a puja surviving 85 unbroken years hasn't done so without adapting. Singhi Park's pandal themes in recent years have ranged from tributes to Bengal's beloved cartoonist Narayan Debnath to socially conscious, sustainability-driven idol-making. That willingness to keep experimenting, year after year, without losing the ritual core, is arguably the real reason this puja still draws crowds from well outside Ballygunge.
South Kolkata's Khuti Puja Season Is in Full Swing
Singhi Park isn't ushering in its season alone. South and North Kolkata alike have been busy through the back half of August, with bamboo poles going up across the city almost daily as clubs race to formalise their 2026 season. If you're tracking the wider picture of who's announced what and when, our running Khuti Puja 2026 coverage is updated through the season as new ceremonies are confirmed — a useful companion if you're trying to keep pace with an August that has clubs unveiling banners almost every other day this year.
From Bamboo to Bisorjon: What Comes Next
Once a khuti puja is done, the real machinery behind Durga Puja starts turning. Workshop artisans begin shaping the framework of the idol, theme details firm up, and committees start locking in the collaborations that will define how their pandal actually looks come October. For readers who enjoy following that journey — watching the goddess's form emerge from bamboo, straw, and clay over the following weeks — our ongoing Kumartuli coverage tracks the artisans behind pujas across the city right through to immersion.
As for Singhi Park itself, the committee's official Facebook page remains the most reliable place to catch updates as the 85th year takes shape — pandal construction shots, artist announcements, and the steady trickle of behind-the-scenes glimpses that usually pick up pace once September arrives.
The Bigger Picture
There's something quietly reassuring about a puja that's old enough to have outlived the people who founded it, and yet still bothers to think carefully about what a single word on a banner should mean. Eighty-five years is long enough that Singhi Park could coast on reputation alone if it wanted to. Instead, the Mangalajatra banner suggests a committee still asking itself what story it wants to tell this year — which, frankly, is the only reason a puja this old stays worth visiting at all.
The khuti is set to go into the ground on the 9th. Everything from here builds toward October, when Dover Lane will find out exactly what shape this year's "auspicious journey" takes.
Quick Answers
When is Singhi Park's khuti puja in 2026? The khuti puja is scheduled for 9th August 2026 at 10:30 AM, with the theme banner having been unveiled on 2nd August.
What year of Durga Puja is Singhi Park celebrating? 2026 marks the 85th year of Singhi Park Sarbojanin Durga Puja, which began in 1941.
What is this year's theme called? The banner names the year's celebration "Mangalajatra," roughly translating to an auspicious or welfare-driven journey — the full pandal theme is expected to be detailed closer to Mahalaya.
Where is Singhi Park located? The puja is held on Dover Lane in Ballygunge, South Kolkata, close to the Ekdalia Evergreen Club and Dhakuria railway station.
Have photographs, updates, or corrections related to Singhi Park's khuti puja and banner reveal? Reach out through our Contact page — community-submitted coverage is always welcome.
Image Credit: Singhi Park Sarbojanin Durga Puja Committee.
