The excitement and exhaustion of Cincinnati Durga Utsav are finally wearing off. The chatter in our Puja Committee Whatsapp group has moved on from frantic SOS messages to haansi-thatta memes. The weekends are looking busier than ever as we get closer to the holiday season. But, unlike in the past - the Puja Committee will be getting together to continue the planning exercises for our 10th year Puja in 2017. If any of you are interested in joining the Puja team and working actively in the organization of the event, please let us know. There were many new faces and new families who attended CDU 2016 and we will be very glad to have them join the organizing teams.

Many CDU 2016 participants wanted a more relaxed setup to get to know the community members and each other better. The Board of Trustees (BOT) is still deciding on the dates and venue for the After Puja Get Together. Too late into December would mean losing the "After Puja" relevance and too early in October would mean calendar conflicts. Balancing between these two is what the BOT is doing as it finalizes the venue and the date.

Our Cincinnati Durga Puja got a good bit of media exposure this year with News Time Bangla, Banglapodcast, Anandabazaar Patrika etc. If you have missed those earlier, here are a few of them for you to check out:

There are a few CDU 2016 brochures that are still available for purchase. If you forgot to get one during the event and want to pick one up now, you can still do so:

We continue to accept donations from individuals and businesses in support of our organization. All payments should be made to the IRS 501(c)(3) non-profit organization: "Cincinnati Cultural Initiative". 

You can send in a check at our registered address: 
8981 Cypress Point Ln, Cincinnati, OH 45249.

You can also donate online:

What an amazing time we had over the last weekend celebrating Cincinnati's only annual Durga Puja! Everyone had a great time participating in the rituals and the cultural programs.

Living up to one of our core objectives - that of giving adequate exposure of our culture to our second generations kids - the Saturday program line-up started off with the youngest ones with their fabulous Dhunuchi Naach, before progressively moving to the elementary, middle and  high school kids. Then came the performance by our young adults who are in colleges now but come back for the pujo days every year. And finally, performances by the adults from the community. Sunday afternoon is always reserved for the new comers and this year too there were quite a few of them who participated. We hope they will continue to participate and perform next year.

​The uniqueness of our Pujo is the quintessential bengali "ghoroa" nature of the event where all participants are encouraged to get actively involved, participate, perform, volunteer, take on responsibilities and be a part of the burgeoning community.  That is what makes CDU "everyone's" Pujo. 

It has been a pleasure and privilege to keep everybody updated on the CDU 2016 happenings over the past few months... usually it's time to sign-off now. But this time, we will continue to keep you updated as we plan towards a grand 10th year Pujo in 2017.

One of the first changes that we are going to do based on feedback from many of the CDU 2016 participants is that we will not do the Lakshmi Puja with Khichudi dinner at the temple as was originally planned. Instead we will organize a larger Bijoya get-together a few weeks down the line so that we all get a chance of meeting each other once again and relive a bit of the CDU spirit.

Meanwhile, here is the Bangla Podcast link for your viewing pleasure (our segment starts at 2m 45s): 

Back at work. Back on the road. Back in doing whatever we do the rest of the year.

Amidst all of those mundane stuff, maybe you will take a pause and think about all the fun that you had at the Cincinnati Durga Utsav last weekend. Contact all the new friends that you made. Plan for that pot-luck. Or the out of town trip. And still, maybe you will feel that now-familiar knot in your throat.

Yes, CDU 2016 is over. Yes, the rehearsals and the crazy schedules are gone. Yes, the meetings and the debates are done. Take this time to rejuvenate and recharge. Relax and revitalize. We need all the energy and all the adrenaline to start planning our 10th year Puja next year. So, whether this was your first year or your ninth at Cincinnati Durga Utsav, whether you are a member of CCI or not, we need your support and we need your active involvement. We promise to keep you updated through these pages as we make progress. 

Meanwhile, here's wishing you Shubho Bijoya and Happy Dussera.

Before you log off, try locating yourself in the News Time Bangla TV broadcast of Probasher Pujo that is being aired every 30 minutes today. For those who cannot, here is the clip taken this morning. Enjoy !

We are glad to share with you all that BanglaPodcast will be covering our Pujo today!!

BanglaPodcast is the one and only online portal for Bengalis around the globe. They have been celebrating the Probasi Bengali around the world for almost a decade now. Based in North America, BanglaPodcast team has been showcasing to the world through videos and podcast series, probasi bengali events, Pujo Parikrama, news and personalities.

We are delighted to have Piya Roy from the BanglaPodcast team at our Pujo today. Remember to be there at 11:30 am to be a part of the action.

All the preparations and hard work over the last few weeks are finally over - well, almost over. We now wait in bated breath for the event to kick off smoothly. Today is Maha Shashthi. The Decoration and Setup teams are working at a frantic pace to make sure that we can start the pujo on-time. We will get the venue at our disposal at 5 pm, but pre-work has started off from the morning with a visit to the storage, a visit to the school, uhaul renting etc. all lined up one after the other.

In between there is time to be set aside for planning the dresses and jewelries to be worn. Maybe a short trip to the bank locker to take out that gold chain which last saw daylight a year ago. Co-ordinating colors with the hubbies and deciding on styles with friends. Thank god, there is Whatsapp and Group Texts. Someone said Maa Durga's Goda is missing from last year !! Are we going to search and be able to find it out before evening today? Are we going to make a new one instead? Tough questions. Tougher decisions.
 
There are more than 200 registrants who will be attending CDU 2016 for the first time ever ! This is aside from our regular members and community friends. 

We welcome everybody and look forward to meeting new people, making new friends, re-kindling old acquaintances.

Have a wonderful pujo ! 

A warm welcome to everyone planning to participate in CDU 2016, a 3-days' extravaganza, Cincinnati's only annual Durga Puja !! 

Our online registration is now closed. We invite you to register at the gate. You will be given a registration form to fill up. Alternately, to save time and enter the premises quickly - you can download the gate registration form, pre-fill and carry along with your registration payments to the venue. 

We look forward to having you with us at CDU 2016. Let us all enjoy these 3 days' to our hearts' content.

​Do consider joining CCI as a member and take advantage of different benefits - such as free registration of parents at the Cincinnati Durga Utsav, a print copy of the pujo brochure, one free event during the year etc. This year's cut-off date for membership benefits is 1-Aug-2016.

To all the wonderful people out there who have already registered for this year's Cincinnati Durga Puja, a big THANK YOU. It is of immense help when we get your registration information ahead of time and can appropriately complete the registration records, enter your details in the Pujo Brochure directory and plan for ample seating and serving capacities. Thank you for making the lives of the pujo committee members a little easier ! We will be feeding more than 1000 people over the 3-days' event and every bit of prior information helps.

For all the others who are planning to register but have not done so yet, today is the last day of online registrations. Come Thursday night and this will be taken offline. At that point, the only way to register will be at the gate on the days of the event. We do want to minimize that as much as possible; one - to avoid over-crowding at the entrance and two - to avoid having to charge the higher gate rates. On an average the gate rates will be $20 higher per person.

So, with all that preamble out of the way - please do register at your earliest convenience today.

We look forward to your having a great time at the Pujo.

As we gear up to celebrate our 9th Durga Puja this year, we cannot but indulge in all the enjoyable recollections from the past many years and the path that we have traversed to get to where we are today. Here's a short blast from the past starting with our journey from the Cincinnati Customs in 2010 !

​2 more days to go ... 2 more days before the biggest event of the year unfolds ... 2 more days before the registration rates go up. Please register right away, if you have not done so yet @ www.cciorg.com. Here are the rates, should you choose to register at the gate on the days of the event:

​These past few days are turning out to be extremely hectic ones as the organizing teams work towards putting their final acts together for the big event this weekend ! While they have been busy, the webmaster found some time to clean up the archives and look what we found - here's a photo of our first ever Durga Puja in Cincinnati in 2008 ! From then to now has been an eventful, awesome journey, made possible by each and every one of you, each year, every year!

​And here's a short clip of a couple of participants, who have moved on from Cincinnati now, but continue to be our well-wishers to this day. We hope you will also enjoy as much and be an integral part of the CCI community in the days to come.

Shubho Sharodiya!