Brisk business at puja

NEW DELHI: Celebrations mean business — worth crores and more. Looks change, and so do ways to enjoy, but this is one aspect that remains constant. Each year before the start of the five-day Bengali extravaganza, the fair, inevitably catering to a predominantly Bengali clientele, is held at the Chittaranjan Memorial Society grounds for about one month.
The get-up has changed.While earlier it used to be the ultimate destination for traditional Bengali sarees, with the changing times, it has acquired a more cosmopolitan hue. The thrust, however, still is on sarees, even as non-Bengalis make a beeline for that authentic kantha stitch, dhakai jamdani or the more embellished baluchari.
And the turnover for just one month, comes to close to Rs 1 crore. Sribas Bhattacharya, general secretary, Bangiya Samaj, which organises the fair, said, ‘‘We began 19 years ag\o. The fair now is a smaller version because of a building having come up in the ground. Still, we have around 50 participants, mostly from Delhi, West Bengal and Orissa.’’ A sizable fraction of the participants come from Kolkata.
Local businessmen get supplies of cotton sarees from Fulia, Samudradeep, Bolpur and Dhanekhali. ‘‘This is one place to get authentic and traditional Bengali stuff. For the rest of the year, anything of this sort that we may want to buy, we have the government emporiums and sundry shops in CR Park,’’ said Parna Saha, a CR Park resident.