Sweet Memory: How a Kolkata Durga Puja Is Retelling Bengals Love Affair With Mishti
In central Kolkata, the Wellington Nagarik Kalyan Samity’s Durga Puja has turned the humble mishti into a theme. “Mishtanna Puran” traces a thousand-odd years of milk, sugar and ingenuity—from temple offerings to the rosogolla—and reminds the city that no other cuisine has made sweetness so central to its identity. Reporting and writing by Sujoy Dhar and Aaheli Chakraborty; photos by Avishek Mitra
When the Body Becomes a Temple: The Ramnami Samaj's Century-Old Rebellion Now Inspires Kolkata's Durga Puja
Denied entry into temples, they did not argue — they carried Ram on their skin instead. TWF-IBNS correspondent Souvik Ghosh traces how Chhattisgarh's Ramnami Samaj, a Dalit devotional community that began tattooing the name of Ram across their bodies in the 1890s as a quiet act of resistance against caste exclusion, has travelled from the margins of religious history to the heart of this year's Durga Puja — where their extraordinary story of faith, identity and defiance is the centrepiece in Chaltabagan, one of North Kolkata's most celebrated pandals.
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Art and Culture
Sweet Memory: How a Kolkata Durga Puja Is Retelling Bengals Love Affair With Mishti
October 15, 2026
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Art and Culture
When the Body Becomes a Temple: The Ramnami Samaj's Century-Old Rebellion Now Inspires Kolkata's Durga Puja
September 03, 2026