Dhenkanal: Dhenkanal town is famous for Laxmi Puja. With only three days left, all 38 puja committees here are leaving no stone unturned to make their respective pandals attractive.
Two of the major pandals, Jawahar Chowk Puja Pratisthan and Swapneswar Bazaar at Korian, are celebrating their platinum and golden jubilee respectively this year.
A kind of competition between the puja committees to make their pandals more attractive has already started. They have significantly increased the budget earmarked for pandal decoration. This year, theme based pandals seem to have become the first choice among all puja committees. Most of the themes depict Odisha’s architectural heritage and narrate mythological topics.
This year, Meena Bazaar, Kaibalya bazaar and Ganesh Bazaar are going to be the crowd pullers given their silver tableaus. Laxmi Bazaar’s main attraction is going to be the idol’s jewellery and the pandal showing mythological characters. Jawahar Chowk Puja Committee’s pandal is fast taking shape of Golden Temple. Artisans are giving final touches to a palace like pandal at Ananda Bazaar. Demon Hiranyakashipu being slain by Lord Vishnu in his Narasingha avatar is the theme of Baji Chowk puja mandap.
Laxmi Bazaar committee members say they are depicting the episode of how Lord Jagannath manages to please goddess Laxmi after returning from his nine-day-long sojourn to Mausi Maa temple. Ganesh Bazaar Committee is decorating its pandal with a kind of grass called Panicum Maximum procured from Kerala.
Next to putting up magnificent pandals, light, sound and decorations have been the major focus area for all committees. At the same time, for the first time the administration is going to put up ‘Sarasamela’ at Mahishapat ground and preparation for the same is in last stage.
