Durga Puja in Spartan Prose [Emma]

During Durga Puja, we went around Kolkata and looked at the pandals a lot. Pandals are the things that idols are kept in. They are really big and very elaborate. My favorite one was made of plywood and it had tons of designs carved in. At the top, there was a big chandelier carved out of wood. The idols were up on a stage in the back like they always are. There were pieces of wood painted blue and white and shaped like clouds around them. In this one, Durga was standing on the world. Another cool one looked like you were walking into these stone ruins. There was a big statue in the middle and some smaller ones that were up on a ledge on the side that were broken. The cool part was that the whole thing was made of Styrofoam.

Every day we went downstairs and had dinner with everyone in the apartment. People eat with their hands here, so that’s what we had to do. It was kinda hard at first, but there were these puffy bread things called luchi that you rip up and then you can eat with them and that was easier. There were a lot of potato dishes. There was also really good chutney and deserts.