One Night Devotion – A photo series by Aniket Pal.

Meet young Aniket Pal, a creative and documentary photography enthusiast from Lalgola, Murshidabad, West Bengal. He started his photography journey in late 2019 as a hobby, however his perspective on photography started to change lately, now he prefers to compose his photographs in the form of storytelling or documentary. In this article, Aniket documented a very old and awaken Hindu Goddess Kali temple and it’s unique rituals, situated at Murshidabad,West Bengal.

Find Aniket Pal here

One Night Devotion – The Photo Series:

This Photo Series is from Panchthupi, a village in Burwan CD block in Kandi subdivision of Murshidabad district in the state of West Bengal, India.
Now let’s savvy about the back story of this place. Nobody knows when the temple was built and devotees started worshiping the female deity or the mother goddess Kali, but people talk or stories says that its more than 250 years old and the temple was set up by one Sudip Mohan Gosh Mallick, the local squire or Zamindar back then.
But before the temple was built, that place was a local hindu burning cemetery. Locals say that a post office employee Saktibodha Rajguru was a great devotee of mother goddess Kali and he use to offer his prayers in a Tantrik manner there before the temple came into existence. The festival is celebrated every year during Bengali month of falguna ( march in English calendar ) at amavasya ( no moon night ), with complete devotion and purity.

Tantrik style of sadhana (tantrism or conjure) and the blind faith of animal sacrifice go hand in hand since ages and it is still practiced here. It is upto the reader’s personal discretion whether to accept the faith and belief of divine offering of animal sacrifices or to completely disagree on this particular practice. The main attraction is that the idol is made on the same dusk of the festival and after all the offerings and rituals are over, the immersion of the deity’s idol is done at dawn of the next day. It’s a one night devotion towards the mother goddess.

According to the locals the mother goddess is very awaken and people believe that their prayers never goes un-heard by the mother goddess also it is believed that a Kali idol is buried under the platform where the present idol is worshiped and you will realize the purity and devotion by the glance of the photo series.