Kataka: Tableaux featuring Goddess Durga as well as Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati in Kataka are dazzling with silver and gold ornaments during the ongoing Durga puja festival, as the Millennium City’s number of silver tableaux increased to 37 this year.
The Shrimad Bhagabat Gadi Ganesh Ghat and Sahebzada Bazar Puja committee has joined the list this year as a debutant, taking the total number of silver tableaux from 36 to 37.
The Shrimad Bhagabat Gadi committee has installed a silver tableau at its puja mandap, featuring idols of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati.
The tableau weighs about 200 kilograms.
More than 100 quintals of silver have been used in the 37 tableaux across the city, while the gold ornaments adorning the deities weigh more than 97 kilograms in total.
Special security arrangements have been made, with armed police personnel deployed round-the-clock at the puja mandaps to guard the valuable ornaments.
Besides the silver tableaux, a brass tableau is being displayed at Telenga Bazar and a glass tableau at Rausapatna. According to available information, more than 170 mandaps in Kataka worship clay idols of Goddess Durga and the divine couple, Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati, during the festival.
The city’s first silver tableau was built at Choudhury Bazar in 1956, marking the beginning of a tradition that has since become a distinctive feature of Kataka’s Durga puja celebrations.
Kataka’s silver tableau tradition gained momentum in 1991, when the Sheikh Bazaar Puja Committee built the city’s second silver tableau.
Since then, the number of silver-decorated tableaux has steadily increased, with one puja committee after another joining the trend.
The use of gold alongside silver has further enhanced the grandeur of Kataka’s Durga puja celebrations.
The Choudhury Bazaar tableau features nine gold ornaments shaped like floral buds, each weighing more than 1 kilogram.
The Sheikh Bazaar tableau, meanwhile, incorporates more than 5 kilograms of gold in its intricate decorative work. Gold crowns are also a prominent feature of the puja pandals at Chauliaganj, Ranihat, Khan Nagar, Kathagada Sahi, Haripur-Dolamundai, Mangalabag and College Square puja committees.
Each of these seven pandals uses an average of about 5 kilograms of gold.
Overall, more than 97 kilograms of gold is estimated to have been used in the decoration of Katak’s Durga Puja tableaux and idols, adding to the city’s reputation for elaborate festive craftsmanship.