Durga Puja 2026
Durga Puja Adani Preview: When Maa Arrived Early
Sneha T S
Backing inclusivity and the heroes behind Bengal’s festival, the Adani Group opened Durga Puja early to elderly people and people with disabilities.
Picture the lane on Shashti night. The Dhaak thunders, and a wall of people jostle towards the pandal. An elderly devotee, who has welcomed Maa for decades, pauses where the crowd thickens, wishing for a little more room. Nearby, a visitor who uses a wheelchair looks towards the pandal, hoping for a clear path.
Every Bengali knows the feeling of waiting a year for Maa. For elderly people and people with disabilities, the crowd and the queue can stand between them and the magic.
The Adani Group set out to change that. It opened eight Kolkata pujas early to elderly people and people with disabilities, and backed the artists behind them with INR 2 crore, through the first Durga Puja Adani Preview (DPAP), a free, two-night viewing held on 11 and 12 October.
Grants With Names
Each of the eight pujas won a grant of INR 25 lakh. The Group split each grant with care: INR 15 lakh to the committee to run the event and INR 10 lakh to the principal artist, whose vision starts the work, but who is too often the last to be paid and the first to be forgotten.
A Gentler Overture
The Preview ran ahead of the main festival, which begins on 16 October. Doors stayed open from 6 PM to 4 AM, and the first visitors through them were elderly people and people with disabilities.
Pandals kept movement unobstructed and provided reception, marked pick-up and drop-off points, first aid and an information desk. Trained guides narrated each puja’s story with the help of a Theme Card or Narration Book.
A Gathering United By Faith
Eight Canvases, Eight Voices
The selected artists and puja committees included Anirban Das for Alipore Sarbojanin Durgotsav, Bhabatosh Sutar for Yuba Sangha, Debasis Barui for Rajdanga Naba Uday Sangha, Eshika Chandra and Deep Das for Barisha Club, Pradip Das for Behala Club Sarbojonin, Purnendu Dey for Rajdanga Amra Kayjan Kalyan Samity, Raju Sarkar for Thakurpur State Bank Park Sarbojanin, and Sanatan Dinda for Nalin Sarkar Street Sarbojanin Durgatsob Samity.
The initiative sought to bring greater attention to the artists, artisans, designers, organisers and neighbourhood communities whose months of dedication and creative effort shaped Kolkata’s Durga Puja celebrations each year.
While the completed pandals and installations were experienced by millions during the festival, the preview offered visitors an opportunity to spend more time exploring the concepts, materials, craftsmanship and human stories that went into their creation.
Artwork at The Preview
Footfall at The Puja
Durga Puja Adani Preview 2026
Visitors at The Puja
Adani Volunteers
A Culture Worth Carrying
Why would a large corporate step into a festival? The Adani Group’s answer is a simple belief: Durga Puja is culture, art, tourism and an economic ecosystem all at once. UNESCO inscribed the festival on its list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity five years ago. Yet the base beneath that spectacle remains largely unorganised.
Behind every glowing pandal stands an army of creators, from the idol-makers of Kumartuli and the dhaaki whose drumbeat carries through the night to the carpenter, electrician and light designer, and thousands of small businesses whose livelihoods come alive at festival time.
The Group wanted to bring them all on one platform. The Group also joined an initiative to restore Kumartuli Ghat on the Hooghly, where sculptors create thousands of idols for Kolkata and beyond.
When the Dhaak echoes across the city on 16 October, eight pujas will already have been cherished by those who needed it the most.
Maa eshechhilo. This year, she had come a little early!