Rangoli Journal

Everything from here is arithmetic. Shashthi is 16 October and Mahalaya is 10 October. Working backwards from those two dates gives you every deadline...

The same saree, draped two ways, is two outfits. Most people only know one drape and default to it for six days, which is...

Walk a Kolkata pandal today and you will see as much Ikkat and Bandhani as Tant. Both came from a long way away, and...

Most festive shopping advice assumes one person buying one outfit. A family of four across six days is twenty-four outfit-days, and it is a...

Navratri and Durga Puja are the same nine nights of the same goddess, and the clothes have almost nothing in common. People who move...

Durga Puja outside Bengal is not a smaller version of the Kolkata festival. It is a different occasion with different clothes, and treating it...

Hyderabad does Durga Puja seriously — the Bengali associations in Secunderabad and the pandals around Banjara Hills draw real crowds — but the shopping...

Puja gifting is the one time of year Bengalis buy clothes for other adults, and it is genuinely difficult. You are guessing at size,...