Purohit school brings hope for jobless

KOLKATA: 40-year old Narayan Shashtri and 19 year old Bibek Mukherjee are classmates in a unique school. The Purohit Paathshala on Haritaki Bagan Lane near Amherst Street, is provding hope for the unemployed who had for so long been contemplating nothing but a bleak future.
During Durga Puja, Shashtri will be assisting the main purohit of Nayanchand Dutta Street Sarbojonin Durgotsav."I will earn Rs 800 and will also bring back clothes, food grains, fruits and sweets for my family," Shashtri said.
Similarly, Mukherjee performed pujas on the day of Vishwakarma Puja. Another alumnus, 55 year old Lakhan Chakraborty, will be performing chandipaath at a Navratri function.
Founded by the Baidic Pandit-O-Purohit Mahamilan Kendra, the school is a platform for the purohits of major community Durga pujas of the city. Started in April, the first batch comprises 35 students. Students pay a monthly tuition fee of Rs 50.
The students are offered a year''s course. They can choose between the comparatively easier pandit bisharad or the one that leads to the pandit ratna. The final written examination will be conducted in April by a panel of Sanskrit scholars. "For practicals we have tied up with para clubs and families", Kendra president Netai Chakraborty said.
On completion, students will be offered community and family pujas to perform. Chakraborty said that he has written to the Benaras Hindu University and was expecting an affiliation next year in the university''s distance learning schemes.
For purohit ratna, one has to study the mantras not only of all the popular pujas like Durga, Kali, Jagaddhatri, Lakshmi, Saraswati, Kartick, Ganesh, Vishwakarma and Manasa but also mantras for weddings, thread ceremony, funerals and griha pravesh.
"A purohit bisharad only learns the puja-performing mantras and not the difficult ones", Chakraborty said.