Durga Puja is here! What does it mean to a child? Step into this book and watch the festival come alive!This book is part of the series 'From The Toddler Diaries' and celebrates Durga Puja as experienced by 3 year old Riya. This artfully portrayed '5 Days of Pujo' appeals to young and old alike. Shashti, Saptami, Ashtami, Navami and Bijoya Dashami - the cultural colors have a pronounced Bengali connection, but are universal to Durga Puja celebrations across several communities. With 5 star reviews, this book is easy to read and is enthusiastically endorsed by kids and their parents alike!From The Toddler Diaries is a series of illustrated books which celebrates the spectrum of Indian festivals as experienced by a toddler. Presented in poetry and color, 'From The Toddler Diaries' is designed to drape parents and children in vivid hues of India's cultural fabric. The inspiration behind this collection comes from an appreciation of a child's clarity in perception, which becomes magical because of its simplicity. Also, check out 'Celebrate Holi With Me!', which is part of this series.A charming and informative book. A great way to introduce children to the culture.~ Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Award winning author of 'The Mistress of Spices' and 'Before We Visit the Goddess'When I read Shoumi Sen's Celebrate Durga Puja With Me, brilliantly illustrated by Abira Das, I must admit that I want to witness at least one Durga Pujo in my life?~ TokaBox

This book is compiled with the goal of explaining the hidden history, significance, and meaning of the mantras used in common Hindu puja rituals performed by the Bengalis to the Bengali immigrants.

During a nine-day period every autumn, Hindus in India and throughout the world worship the Great Goddess, Durgā--the formidable deity who is loved like a mother. One of the most dramatic and popular of these celebrations is the Durgā Pūjā, a rite noted for its visual pageantry, ritual complexity, and communal participation. In this book, Hillary Peter Rodrigues describes the Bengali style of Durgā Pūjā practiced in the sacred city of Banaras from beginning to end. A romanization of the Sanskrit litany is included along with an English translation. In addition to the liturgical description, Rodrigues provides information on the rite's component elements and mythic aspects. There are interpretive sections on puja, the Great Goddess, women's roles in the ritual, and the socio-cultural functions of the ritual. Rodrigues maintains that the Durgā Pūjā is a rite of cosmic rejuvenation, of empowerment at both the personal and social levels, and a rite that orchestrates manifestations of the feminine, both Divine and human.

Popular Hinduism is shaped, above all, by worship of a multitude of powerful divine beings--a superabundance indicated by the proverbial total of 330 million gods and goddesses. The fluid relationship between these beings and humans is a central theme of this rich and accessible study of popular Hinduism in the context of the society of contemporary India. Lucidly organized and skillfully written, The Camphor Flame brings clarity to an immensely complicated subject. C. J. Fuller combines ethnographic case studies with comparative anthropological analysis and draws on textual and historical scholarship as well. The book's new afterword brings the study up-to-date by examining the relationship between popular Hinduism and contemporary Hindu nationalism.

In rhyming text, describes how the ten-armed woman named Durga was created to defeat the immortal demon Mahisha, and details how her achievements are celebrated in Durga Puja, the ten-day festival of song, worship, and prayer.

In the popular imagination, Calcutta is a packed and pestilential sprawl, made notorious by the Black Hole and the works of Mother Teresa. Kipling called it a City of Dreadful Night, and a century later V.S. Naipaul, Gunter Grass and Louis Malle revived its hellish image. This is the place where the West first truly encountered the East. Founded in the 1690s by East India Company merchants beside the Hugli River, Calcutta grew into India's capital during the Raj and the second city of the British Empire. Named the City of Palaces for its neoclassical mansions, Calcutta was the city of Clive, Hastings, Macaulay and Curzon. It was also home to extraordinary Bengalis such as Rabindranath Tagore, the first Asian Nobel laureate, and Satyajit Ray, among the geniuses of world cinema. Above all, Calcutta (renamed Kolkata in 2001) is a city of extremes, where exquisite refinement rubs shoulders with coarse commercialism and political violence. Krishna Dutta explores these multiple paradoxes, giving personal insight into Calcutta's unique history and modern identity as reflected in its architecture, literature, cinema and music. CITY OF ARTISTS: Modern India's cultural capital; home city of

The Advanced Puja is significantly more sophisticated than the original Durga Puja Beginner, adding several viddhis and stotrams, including the Durga Sahasranam. This book guides the spiritual seeker toward union with Durga, the Goddess who takes away confusion, replacing it with stillness and clarity.