Durga Puja is an annual Hindu festival that celebrates worship of goddess Durga. While Durga Puja is now celebrated across the world, it is predominantly a festival that is celebrated in South East Asia, particularly in India and Bangladesh.

Delhi Durga Puja Samiti, popularly known as the Kashmere Gate Durga Puja, started Durga Puja in 1910 and is the oldest community Durga Puja of Delhi. It is held in the lawns of Bengali Senior Secondary School, at Alipur Road. In the last 100 years, it is admirable how the community has been able to maintain the tradition of the past and hold on to its roots, generation after generation. The idol, in traditional ekchala daaker saaj, is crafted by artisans whose forefathers had been crafting the idols for the last hundred years. An unique tradition still maintained is the immersion procession, on Dashami afternoon (last day of the festival), when Maa Durga and her children travel on a bullock cart to the ghats (banks) of river Yamuna. Hundred years back that was the only means of transport but the organisers have held onto the tradition decade after decade. The bullocks are still provided by the same family that used to provide them hundred years back.

Here is a photo feature on the magnificent immersion journey from the premises of Bengali Senior Secondary School to the banks of river Yamuna, in the heart of New Delhi, India.