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Saraswati Puja breaks religious barriers

SURANJIT DEBNATH
Saraswati Puja, one of the main religious festivals of the Hindu community, was celebrated yesterday amid fanfare, with the believers seeking blessings of Saraswati, considered as the goddess of knowledge.
Most of the educational institutions in the city were in a festive mood yesterday as colourfully decorated and illuminated puja mandaps attracted hundreds of people irrespective of their religion.
Over the years, Saraswati
Puja has become a social event of all communities breaking their religious barriers, which was manifested in the presence of many Muslims, Buddhists and Christians at all the puja mandaps.
Traditionally, the students of Jagannath Hall of Dhaka University (DU) celebrated the festival setting up 35 to 40 mandaps to worship the goddess of learning, knowledge, music and art.
The puja was also arranged at Samsunnahar Hall, Rokeya Hall and Kuwait Moitree Hall of DU, Dhaka College, Eden College, Dhakeswari temple,
Siddheswari temple, Ramkrishna Mission and all the temples in Tantibazar, Shankharibazar, Banglabazar, Mohakhali and Farm Gate areas.
The students of 30 departments of the university also arranged separate puja mandap this year. Of them, Mass Communication and Journalism (MCJ) Department arranged the puja depicting the chronological changes of medium in human communication from the ancient time.
Conch shells blew and sounds of bells, metal cymbals and high-pitched ululation
were heard all around when the puja began in the morning.
"Saraswati Puja has turned into a common festival for all," said Abdur Rahman Jahangir, a fourth-year student of SM Hall, while visiting the puja mandap at Jagannath Hall. "It is also a reunion for former and present students."
"Every year I come here to enjoy the Bani Archana as well as to meet old friends," Shatadal Sarkar, a former student, told The Daily Star.
"We worship Saraswati who guides us from darkness to light and from ignorance to spiritual enlightenment," said
Shilpi Rani Debnath, a devotee.
The students spend a big amount of money to arrange the puja. "Around Tk 50,000 is needed to organise a mandap," said Dipankar Chakravorty Dipon, convenor of the MCJ Department Puja Committee.
The puja mandaps also offer small traders the opportunity to sell various goods including books, food items, toys and cheap ornaments. "I expect sales worth Tk 4,000 during the festival," said Narayan Mandol who sells religious books.
As Jagannath Hall is the city's biggest venue of Saraswati Puja, the authorities formed a 10-member committee to hold the festival peacefully. But due to the absence of adequate security measures, many visitors felt insecure.
"It is very difficult to cheek every visitor in such a big festival but I informed the Proctor's Office and the police to take security measures," Nim Chandra Bhaumik, provost of the hall, told The Daily Star.