Navami, the last full day

Navami opens where Sandhi Puja left off. There is a homa — the fire offering — and in most pujas the largest bhog of the five days, cooked and served through the middle of the day to whoever is there.

The rituals of Navami are the completion of the worship. Everything from Shashthi has been building to it, and after it there is nothing left to do except say goodbye.

A lot of people in Kolkata will tell you Navami night is better than Ashtami, and they are usually right. The crowds are still very large but marginally thinner; the mood is warmer; and there is a specific end-of-something feeling in the streets that Ashtami does not have.

It is also the last chance. Whatever you did not see, you see tonight, and the city knows it — which is why the walking goes on until three or four in the morning and the food stalls stay open for it.

Do not try to do too much. Two neighbourhoods, well walked, beats five badly. If you have a route saved on this site, Navami is the night to actually run it rather than improvise.

Eat properly before midnight. By two in the morning the choice narrows to tea, and the queues for that are long too.

Partly the crowds, which are a shade lighter than Ashtami almost everywhere. Partly the food, because the stalls have had two days to work out what sells and the good ones are at their best.

Mostly, though, it is the mood. Ashtami is the festival at maximum effort; Navami is the festival enjoying itself. Committees relax, volunteers who have been on their feet since Shashthi actually watch their own puja, and the paras stay out late because there is no reason not to.

The other thing about Navami is that it is when the neighbourhood pujas are at their most sociable. Cultural programmes, competitions, someone's uncle singing — these mostly happen on Navami evening, and they are the part of Pujo a visitor almost never sees because they are inside a para rather than on the route between famous names.

Dashami begins early and is a different kind of day. If you are doing both, sleep — Navami night running into Dashami morning with no rest in between is how people end up watching sindoor khela from a car.