Kolkata · Durga Puja 2026
Saptami morning and the Kola Bou
Before dawn on Saptami a bundle of nine plants is carried to the river, bathed, dressed in a sari and installed beside Ganesh. It is the oldest thing in the festival.
Written for Durga Puja 2026 · Last updated 14 August 2026
Nine plants
The Nabapatrika is nine plants bound together — banana, colocasia, turmeric, jayanti, bel, pomegranate, ashoka, arum and rice paddy — each standing for a form of the goddess. Bound, draped in a red-bordered white sari and stood upright, the bundle looks like a small veiled figure, which is why Kolkata calls it Kola Bou, the banana bride.
It is popularly explained as Ganesh's wife. That is a folk reading rather than the liturgical one — the nine plants are nine aspects of Durga herself — but it is the reading almost everyone in the city grew up with, and the bundle is installed to Ganesh's right regardless.
The procession
Before sunrise on Saptami the bundle is carried from the pandal to the nearest water — the Hooghly, a tank, a ghat — with the dhak going the whole way. It is bathed, dressed, and carried back in procession to be installed before the main worship of the day begins.
It is one of the few parts of the festival that still belongs entirely to the neighbourhood rather than to the crowd. In north Kolkata, where the paras sit close to the river, the walk to the ghat and back at first light is the single most atmospheric twenty minutes of the five days.
Seeing it
Be at a riverside ghat in north Kolkata around dawn — Baghbazar, Ahiritola and Kumartuli all have their own — and you will see several processions come and go. Ask before you photograph, keep off the steps people are using, and do not follow a party into the water.
Saptami evening is a completely different city. The crowds arrive with it and do not really leave again until Dashami.
The 10 pujas on this guide
The pujas this site lists in Baghbazar, Ahiritola and Kumartuli — the north Kolkata neighbourhoods that sit closest to the river ghats.
Every one of these has a confirmed position, so the Route Planner can order them and draw the walk between them.
- AhiritolaB K Paul Avenue, Ahiritola
- Ahiritola Jubak BrindaAhiritola
- Baghbazar Haldar Bari er PujoBaghbazar
- Baghbazar JagodhartiBaghbazar
- Baghbazar PallyBaghbazar
- Baghbazar Sarbojonin Durgotsab & ExhibitionBagbazar Street, Bagbazar
- Kumartuli ParkKumartuli
- Kumartuli PreparationKumartuli
- Kumartuli SarbojaninKumartuli
- Naba BaghbazarBaghbazar
Read next
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Mahalaya and the start of Devi Paksha
The morning a week before Shashthi when Kolkata wakes at four to a radio programme, and the festival begins in earnest.
The six-in-the-morning shift
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Written by Pujo Kolkata. Pandal listings come from the PujoKolkata master dataset, with coordinates from the IndianOil–Kolkata Police Puja Guide and from community-curated puja maps of the city. Nothing here publishes a 2026 theme, a timing or a crowd level for any puja, because none has been announced. Browse every pandal.