The two-week Durga Puja (usually falling around September or October) is the most lavish and the longest-anticipated festival of all. Durga, the ten-armed wife of Shiva, is shown slaying the demon Mahisasura, who assumed the shape of a buffalo and threatened the gods. Durga is on her vahana the lion. Durga's two sons Ganesh and Kartik, and her daughters Lakshmi and Saraswati, are also worshipped at the same time.

Pandal and idol construction in West Bengal and Kolkata in particular, have evolved into a competitive art. Each year the city is be-decked with elaborate pandals, the construction of which starts a month or so before the actual puja itself. There are traditional pandals, and new ones reflecting current politics, world events, and popular culture -- so one year you might have a Titanic pandal, while another year you might have one modelled on the Sydney Olympics. Similarly, the idols dazzle one with their ingenuity and exquisite craftsmanship -- there are the traditional papier mache and clay idols, beside the nouveau ones made with plastic, rubber, safety pins and other improbable items.

Puja season in Calcutta is characterized by traffic jams, milling crowds, songs on loudspeakers everywhere, frenetic clothes-shopping, and, of course, everyone's favorite pastime, eating! Food stalls surround every pandal, and people spend as much, if not more, time chowing down on pani puris, kachauris, samosas, ice cream and egg rolls, as they do inside paying obeisance to the goddess!