Durga Puja 2025 in Bengal: Food, rituals, and the feminist celebration of the goddess

Durga Puja is held every year around late September or early October, and is celebrated in eastern India, coinciding with Navratri in North India. Both festivals honour the divine feminine power, or shakti, but there is a key difference. While Navratri is a period of strict culinary abstinence, Durga Puja is celebrated like the homecoming of a beloved family member – with abundant food, feasting, and joy. Unlike most Hindu festivals, it is marked by the preparation of specific meat and fish delicacies, alongside the rituals, new clothes, and endless social visits.

Durga – daughter of the mountain lord Himalaya and his wife Menaka – is depicted by idol makers (kumors) as a striking woman with flowing hair, clad in a saree, astride her lion steed. She has ten arms, each carrying a weapon, while the lion is shown crushing Mahishasura beneath its paws. In our ancestral village of Guptipara, where the community Barowari Durga Puja began (until then celebrated only in private homes), the steed has remained unchanged – a lion resembling a horse with fangs. This was because the potters of centuries past had never seen a real lion.

Lunch, on the second day of the Puja, usually features a khichuri of rice and lentils cooked with spices and ghee. (Photo: Freepik)

Ashtami, the second day of Durga’s stay, is the most significant. The day begins with a fast and prayers, followed by the only strictly vegetarian meal of the festival. But this vegetarian fare is anything but simple. Lunch features a rich khichuri of rice and lentils cooked with spices and ghee. In the evening, after the arati (ritual prayer), comes the iconic spread of puffed fried bread (luchis) with alur dum (spiced potatoes flavoured with asafoetida) and chholar dal (Bengal gram lentils with coconut slivers).

Navami, the last day of Durga’s visit, is dedicated to meat. Traditionally, this stemmed from sacrificial offerings of goats or buffaloes, which were then cooked and shared. Over time, under Vaishnav influence and changing sensibilities, animal sacrifice was largely replaced with symbolic offerings such as pumpkins or sugarcane. Yet the tradition of eating niramish mutton (or vegetarian mutton as it is called) – mutton cooked without onions or garlic, considered “heathen” spices – continues. I’ve included my recipe for it below.

On Bijaya Dashami, the day of Durga’s departure, the meals are defined by seasonal vegetables and, above all, sweets. In East Bengal, an ambal – a tangy chutney made with shapla (water lily stalks) – is customary. The evening, however, is devoted to mithai: sandesh, patishapta (sweet crepes), rajbhog, pantua, rosogollas – the list is endless, as are the inevitable digestive and cholesterol complaints of Bengalis.

Next week, I will be writing about all the sweets one can eat during Durga Puja. It’s really quite the array.