The Das family remembers the beginning of their puja as nothing short of a miracle. A boatman, the story goes, carried a young girl across the river. When he asked for his fare, she told him to collect it from Madan Das — and pointed towards the family's home. The family took it as the Mother's own sign, and in 1845, during the British era, they began worshipping Maa Durga in their house.
In the first years the family performed ghata puja — worship of the Goddess in a sacred pot — before a clay pratima could be made. Balasore was then a small town of a few shops near the river ghats, and the Das family, who later became zamindars of Balasore, made the puja the heart of their household.
Generations later, the courtyard with its tall white columns, black louvred shutters and cast-iron balconies still fills with lamps, conch shells and devotees from near and far every autumn.
— the words that, in family memory, began it all
