By Shreshta Paul

Bhubaneswar: The lights were what drew me towards Bhubaneswar’s Durga Puja pandals. Their glow spilled onto the roads, where the city seemed to move to the rhythm of the festival. Street-food stalls were busy, and small traders arranged their wares to catch the attention of passing visitors. Yet, for many people, the main attraction lay ahead: another pandal to visit, another idol to see, another photograph or video to take home.

Pandal-hopping was not effortless. The heat and humidity lingered as people walked long stretches between venues, trying to take in the decorations and capture them on their phones. Bhubaneswar’s Puja offered plenty to share—illuminated gateways, elaborate structures, carefully crafted idols and themes that turned a temporary space into something more ambitious than a place of worship.

Crowd management was part of the experience, too. Police personnel and volunteers directed visitors forward and urged them not to stop in congested areas to take photographs. The intention was clear: keep people moving and reduce the risk of a crush. But at Jharpada, where the crowd felt particularly dense during my visit, movement did not always seem easy to regulate.

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The pandals I saw offered different kinds of visual experiences. In Old Town, the emphasis seemed to be on the artistry of the idols, with some displays appearing more modest in scale than the larger attractions at Jharpada and Old Station Bazaar. Set close to the road, the idols caught the eye of people passing by.

For an outsider like me, who has long associated Durga Puja with the biggest festival of the year, even a brief glimpse could feel familiar and new at once: familiar in its devotion and celebration, new in the details of how Bhubaneswar stages the festival.

Getting around was another part of the evening. As traffic thickened and auto fares rose, walking often seemed easier than finding a ride. The humidity made the journey tiring, and the search for transport at the end of the night tested my patience. But my friends stayed with me until my Uber arrived. That small act of care became one of the memories I carried away from the outing.

I had seen only a part of Bhubaneswar’s Durga Puja, not enough to judge the city’s many pandals as a whole. But that limited journey offered a first impression of a festival shaped as much by movement and shared effort as by light, art and devotion.