Bhoot Chaturdashi to Bhai Phonta: the week in Kolkata

For Bengali families the festival is a week, not a night, and each day has its own small rituals. Here is how the week usually runs, and what we suggest for each part of it.

The day before Kali Pujo is Bhoot Chaturdashi. Families eat choddo shaak, fourteen kinds of greens, and light choddo prodip, fourteen lamps, around the house in the evening. It is a quiet night of clay lamps and candles, and most of our deliveries go out that morning. If you want a few phuljhuri for children on the balcony, this is the evening for them.

Kali Pujo night is the big one. Pandals across the city keep the worship going late into the night, and in the paras the sky shots begin after dark. At home this is when tubri, chorki and rongmoshal come out, usually on the roof or in the lane. A family of four to six is usually happy with our family box and a few extra tubri.

Diwali for many north Indian neighbours falls on the same night, so expect two celebrations on one street. Two days later comes Bhai Phonta, when sisters put a mark of sandalwood on their brothers’ foreheads. It is a day of food more than fireworks, though many families keep a box of chhoto phuljhuri for the children in the evening. Order once for the whole week, by the first week of November, and we deliver everything together.