Pandal hopping with elderly parents

During Pujo, cars are stopped further out than usual and the last stretch to a big puja is always on foot — often several hundred metres, sometimes more, and along a barricaded one-way route you cannot shortcut. That last stretch is the constraint, not the pandal itself.

So plan three pujas, not ten, and pick a neighbourhood where they are genuinely close together. The walking-route guides on this site exist precisely for that: they are built from pujas whose positions are confirmed and which sit within one neighbourhood.

Morning, again. Between seven and ten there are no queues to stand in, the temperature is bearable, and there is somewhere to sit.

Midday on Ashtami or Navami for the bhog is also good — a sitting is a seated event, which is more than can be said for most of the festival.

Bonedi bari pujas are worth considering: a courtyard, chairs, shade, no barricades and a rite you can watch from a distance without being moved along.

Carry water and any medication rather than assuming you can buy them nearby; pharmacies near a major puja are as hard to reach as everything else. Agree in advance who is leaving with whom if somebody needs to go home early.

A wheelchair is possible but needs the accessibility guide's warnings read first — pavements, barricades and temporary structures are the difficulty, not distance.

This works far better than people expect. Most pujas have volunteers at the entrance and many will bring an older visitor in through a side gate rather than round the queue. It is a normal request during the festival and it is not an imposition.

Have someone in the group who can ask in Bengali or Hindi if possible, though English is widely understood. Go to the person in the committee sash rather than the one holding the rope.

Build in a proper sit-down break in the middle, indoors, with a fan. Three pujas and a two-hour lunch is a better day than six pujas and a taxi home early.

Agree in advance that leaving early is fine and that somebody will go with them. A day everyone enjoys and cuts short beats a day that has to be finished.

And go on Chaturthi, Panchami or Shashthi rather than on the peak nights. Every constraint on this page is smaller by half on those days.