Let me share my one experience which touched me a lot. It happened long back. As I remember it was Durga Puja time of the year 2003 or 2004 and I was in Kolkata. We all went out together to see the pandals. In the afternoon we were in front of “Bose Pukur Shitala Mandir” puja committee. There was a long queue in front of the gate. Me and my cousin brother decided to stay away from this rush and did not feel any interest to get inside the pandal. We were just standing outside and waiting for the others to come out, suddenly I saw a Tata Sumo came and 8-10 kids came out of the car along with the driver. All of them were in between 8-12 years. They were not wearing gorgeous cloths as we all do during festival time. Their attire was very simple. It was pretty clear that they belong to some poor family and this realization surprised me the most. I was not able to understand how they could manage to hire a Tata Sumo to go for visiting pandals? I must say they were well disciplined, holding one others hands. Me and my brother, we were discussing, rather guessing what exactly is going on. I saw the driver is very careful about the kids, their gesture. He was scolding whenever anyone was going out of the queue but there was something special in that also which didn’t make the kids felt bad about it. When they came out of the pandals they were having sugar cane juice from a road side stall. I followed their expression and believe me I cannot explain that here. They were so happy in having the sugar cane juice. By the mean time I decided to have a talk with the driver about this. I was speechless after talking him. I am just sharing exactly what he said when I asked "Hey what’s going on, you are with so many kids!!! Are you from any NGO or anything like that?"
"No. This is my car and I work for a travel company. Actually I stay alone here and I don’t have any family with whom I can spend my festival days. So I decided to make my own family. All these children are from Jorabagan Slum area. Every year I take them to see Durga Puja. Yes I know I cannot afford much to buy good, branded new cloths for all of them. But I always try to buy some NEW cloths at least for them. You know that really make them feel good. I have my own economical limitations which do not allow me to go beyond this, but the fact is they don’t even expect more than this and they are happy so am I. For me Durga Puja does not mean praying in front of Idol, wearing gorgeous cloths, spending the whole night in a coffee shop. It is an event to make the people happy around you. It’s not only durga puja it’s true about any festival in India."
His thoughts really overwhelmed me and on that moment also I did not realize one more surprise was yet to come. When I asked that person his name he answered "Md Aslam". Hats off to my country and it’s culture.
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