On 8th October 2016, during the Durga Puja days, social organization Durgapur Adda Young Association took elderly people residing in slum near Amarabati Colony to have a glimpse of the festivity surrounding Durga Puja.
DAYA members visited the locality a few days before the bus ride and identified 70 distressed elderly people who have hardly been to Durga Puja Mandap in several years.
DAYA on its own hired a luxury bus and took these elderly people from their slum to 7 big budget Durga Puja pandals. The pandal hopping started at 10:30 am with Mamra Bazar Durga puja mandap.
Considering the fact that these people are quite old and some walks very slowly, rather limps, taking them for Pandal hopping at night wouldn’t be possible, so it was decided to take them during daytime.
After the pandal hopping got completed at around 1:30 pm, we took them for lunch at a hotel in City Centre Durgapur.
Around 15 DAYA members accompanied the entire journey.
It was indeed a great sight to see so many smiling and enthusiastic faces. No, this effort of DAYA won’t change their life in any way but at least they too got a touch of happiness for some time. Though Durgapur Adda Young Association has no religion biasness and prefer to stay away from all religious activity, but this activity was undertaken firstly because, Durga Puja is more a festival and less a religious practice, secondly this Pujo Porikroma would give these slum dwelling elderly people an occasion to smile and thirdly this certain degree of compromise is not against humanity; who can ignore the fact that being rational is important, but being humane is all the more important.