Kolkata Is Already Out: The Pandals Before the Puja

Shashthi is on the 16th. Nobody in Kolkata is waiting for it.

By the middle of this week the big pandals in the south of the city are open, the lights are up, and the streets around Deshapriya Park and Ekdalia are already hard going. A great many people do their serious pandal hopping now, precisely because Ashtami will be worse.

Why these nights are better

• The queues are shorter. Not short. Shorter.
• You can actually see the idols. From Saptami you shuffle past in a stream, looking at the back of someone's head.
• The pandal art is worth looking at properly. Some of it is by working artists with national reputations, and it is designed to be walked around rather than filed past.
• Nobody is dressed up yet, so you can be comfortable without feeling underdressed.

What to wear on a walking night

Every rule in the pandal-hopping guide applies to these nights more than any other, because this is when you cover the most ground.

• Cotton, cotton-silk or light Tussar. Cotton and linen sarees, Kota.
• Or a salwar suit and keep both hands free all evening.
• For men, a plain cotton kurta. The jacket waits for Ashtami — here is why.
• Shoes you have already worn in. This is the thing that ends evenings early.

Save these for later in the week

The Banarasi, the Kanjivaram, the lehenga. All three are wrong tonight and right on Ashtami — the six-day plan sets out which goes where and why.

Practical

1. Eat before you go. The good stalls have hour-long queues by nine.
2. Agree a meeting point. Phone networks in a pandal crowd stop working, and this catches families out every year.
3. Carry cash. Half the stalls cannot take UPI when the network is down, which it will be.
4. Pick one end of the city. Crossing Kolkata on a Puja evening costs two hours.

Everything for the week is at festive collection.