Kolkata: The 75 Pally Durga Puja of Bhowanipore, which has chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s brother Kartick Banerjee as its president, will have a life-size replica of Saint Teresa as a special attraction.
The fibre replica of Saint Teresa will be encased in glass. It will be placed on a pedestal at a vantage point, which will be earmarked as a `selfie zone’, for visitors to get clicked with the missionary, who put Kolkata on the world map -the first time was in 1979 when she won the Nobel Peace Prize. Artist Kapil Biswas has been roped in to make the replica, which is currently being made at his studio in North-24 Parganas’ Dutta Pukur, said club secretary Subir Das.
“The plan was finalized when Didi’s attendance at the canonization ceremony was fixed,” Das said.
Since there are restrictions on clicking selfies this Puja, special care is being taken to create the `selfie zone’ away from the road, one of the organizers said.People standing in long queues to click selfies with the idols often spill on to the roads triggering traffic chaos.
That’s not all. The theme of this year’s Puja is `Maa’ -the mother figure that manifests itself as Maa Durga in mythology and Mother Teresa in the real world, one of the organizers explained.
A theme song on `Maa’, linking Maa Durga and Saint Teresa, has been composed and recorded in a Kolkatabased studio. The song will be released by the chief minister when she inaugurates the Puja, Das said.
“The club members wrote the lyrics, gave it a tune and sang it themselves,” he added.
The other attraction of this Puja is the pandal and its surroundings which will have millions of mirror pieces, said an organizer. It will be called `Arshinagar’.