~ Our History ~

Adi Barwari Kali Puja was first started in the year 1858 by honorable respected “Sri Bihari Lal Bose” with some honorable members of his time. This is one of the oldest Kali Puja in Central Kolkata with rich heritage and culture. It has been beautifully carried on with all rituals from years after years by the respective successors. So this is how our puja started from our forefathers and we managed to gather some historic moments which we are portraying below.

As we all know the historic moment of India that is the revolution movement which started in the year 1857 and ended in 1858 and we started our puja at that time surrounded by hard and volatile condition. Our forefathers sacrificed a lot and put on a hard struggle to get our puja started to get rid of all the evils and seek blessings of Maa Kali. So let’s rewind us to those evergreen magical moments and conditions of that period.

The scenario of our puja location was surrounded by mud houses every where, ponds (pukur) famously known as ”Madhav Dutta’s Pukur” and beside it there was a famous summer house (bagan bari) of King “Posta” namely “Raja Narasingha Ray” which now a days is commonly known as KMC building.

At the inaugural time (1858) there was only a handful of people involved in this puja so there was no such committee was formed at that time. This was perhaps considered as a family affair based Kali Puja which later in the year 1924/1926 turned into Sarbojanin barwari Kali puja namely “Adi Barwari Kali Puja”. The word “Adi” was formed as the puja started during the period of “Barwari”. At that time the puja expenses was contributed by few families, the idol which was of 7 feet was brought for just 10 to 12 rupees and the puja mandap was decorated with some “gas lights” as there was no source of light.

After several years this puja was successed by “Sri Gour Mohan Roy” followed by “Sri Upendranath Aich” and “Sri Amalya Charan Aich”. At that time the collection of chanda or donation was just Rs 40 which nowadays can’t be imagined.

The incident was that when the animal was going to be sacrificed, the person’s head who was executing it came in the way of that particular weapon and it was going to be a disaster. Although there was obstruction from our society, Late Sri Amalya babu forcefully stopped it.

From then onwards our priest Sri Bhutnath Sharma started (Boli) of sugarcane and pumpkin and it’s still followed. The successor of Bhutnath babu was Ashutosh Bhattacharya and then his son Gobardhan Bhattacharya took over.

Earlier the idol was use to be of “Sosan kali”, but from 1935 onwards the idol was changed to “Dakhin kali” which is still being worshipped. The pandal was used to be of Hogla but nowadays it is created by clothes and rexin.

In the year 1936 a huge transformation took place and the puja became grand and big. Huge amount of money was spend for pandal decoration and various cultural events like singing, dancing, debate, competitions and functions. It was mainly due to Amarendra Krishna Basu, Mukund Murari Sil, Kanailal Dutta and Rajendra Nath Ghosh. In the year 1940 the puja was taken over by Bhupendra Nath Aich,Bijon Basu, Gobordhan Bhattacharya, Kartick Pyne, Ajay Aich, Biswanath Dey & Ranjit Ghosh.

Later on in the year 1958 it was successed by Sri Ashok Kumar Bose, Sri Durga Shankar Das, Sri Mathura Kumar Das, Sri Balaram Das, Sri Alok Nath Dey etc for about 20 glorious years which transformed as a famous Sarbojanin puja in this locality. Gas light game, songs, magic theatre, and various cultural activities was started.

In the year 1983 our 125th year of kali puja celebration was successed by Sri Swapan Ghosh, Mantu Pal, Ashok Das, Debkumar Mullick, Shankar Pyne, Shankar Ghosh, Mahadeb Pyne, Dilip Das, Shankar Bhattacharya, Ajit Das, Kishore Chandra Rana, Subrata Kaku, Somnath Pyne, Shankar Lal, Nirmal Debnath, Subrata Debnath, Sujit Das, Shyamal Debnath etc and it was celebrated with great pomp and grand celebrations.

Adi Barwari Kali Puja is not only famous for his historic events but this puja is also known for its generous contributions for some charity works for the society like distributing clothes and all basic necessities to the poor needy peoples in the year 1943, contributed some donations in Jadavpur hospital in the year 1944 and in I.N.A. Relief fund in the year 1945. Again in the year 1953 it contributed to Hindu Mahasabha Society and at last in the year 1955 it was dedicated to the loved ones of the society who are no more with us who contributed a full hearted effort for the success of this Kali Puja. It also contributed to our library ‘Swaraj Sangha Pathagar’ for educating the poor people of the society.

In the year 2004 this puja was successed by the youth of our society. The youth brought great energy, passions, with some innovative ideas to the kali puja and in the year 2008 our 150th year of kali puja celebration was celebrated with some precious memories which was made grand success by youth’s hard work and dedication.

Some of our youth’s name are Ashish Das, Kaustav Dutta, Ankit Das, Alankar Das, Akash Das, Satadru Nag, Gourob Bera, Avishek Das, Sourav Das etc. are still carrying the responsibility beautifully and with ease with all the hard work to make this kali puja successful as ever.