Sundeep Bhutoria with Pt Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Shishir Bajoria, and Ashok Jaiswal at the Chaltabagan press meet in Kolkata with Ramnani Samaj members from Chhattisgarh.
Kolkata (West Bengal) [India], September 4: The Manicktala Chaltabagan Lohapatty Durga Puja Committee today announced ‘Nishan — The Mark’ as the theme of its 84th Durga Puja along with the release of a especially composed musical theme by Pt. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and the soon-to-be launched Durga Puja Connect app, a global digital initiative that will carry Durga Puja — inscribed by UNESCO on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2021 — to devotees, organisers, the diaspora and admirers across the world.
Elders of the Ramnami Samaj of Chhattisgarh — a devotional community whose members inscribe the name of Ram across their bodies, a practice that began in the 1890s as a peaceful answer to being denied entry at the temple door — were present as guests of honour.
The announcements were made by the Chairman of Chaltabagan Durga Puja, Sundeep Bhutoria, at a press conference in Kolkata in the presence of Grammy Award winner and Padma Bhushan Pt Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Shri Shishir Bajoria and other dignitaries.
“The theme, the music, the presence of the Ramnami Samaj and Durga Puja Connect app are not separate announcements but one idea. A celebration of faith, sacred inscriptions and sounds and a global bridge linking devotees worldwide. Nishan is the mark that is written; the music composition is the audible mark; the Ramnami Samaj are the living proof that a mark, faithfully inscribed, can outlast everything that was used to exclude the people who carry it and the app is the modern mark of technology. It is all about – ink on skin, sound in the air, clay and structure (pratima) in a North Kolkata street and the global connect. With Durga Puja Connect app, we are asking a second question: If a mark can travel across a lifetime, why should a puja not travel across the world? One idea looks inward at what we carry; the other looks outward at how far it can reach,” said Mr Sundeep Bhutoria.
The Chaltabagan Durga Puja Committee describes the movement in a single Bengali phrase — ‘Akshar theke Aakar’ (from the letter to the form).
The 2026 Puja theme Nishan has been conceived by artist Aditi Chakraborty, whose work continues to centre on communities at the margins of the national picture. “Nishan traces godna, the tattoo, as one of India’s oldest acts of faith, protection and quiet protest — the mark a person carries when there is nothing else to carry. The thematic narrative spans communities and geographies: the Baiga woman’s ornament that poverty cannot take away; the healing ‘Jahar Ulki’ of Latehar; the protective and magical designs of the south; and the fertility motifs whose geometry echoes, remarkably, in the 9 plants of the Nabapatrika that Bengal has worshipped for centuries” said Ms Aditi Chakraborty
Grammy Award winner and Padma Bhushan recipient Pt.Vishwa Mohan Bhatt released a special musical composition created for the theme. “When the committee described this theme to me, I recognised it at once as `nishan and naad’. A raga is also a mark — you cannot see it, but it is inscribed, passed from teacher to student, carried for a lifetime. The Ramnamis write the name on the skin; we write it in the air with naad (musical sound). I have tried to compose something that holds both: the sound of a chant that has been repeated for a hundred years, and the sound of an instrument (Mohan Veena) that did not exist before I made it,” Pt. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt said.
The musical track has been created, recorded and mixed by Saurabh Bhatt, with the Mohan Veena played by Atharva Bhatt and Pt. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. The overall concept of anchoring the theme in a musical composition is by Sundeep Bhutoria.
Chaltabagan presenting the Ramnami guests with an uttariyas. The members of the Ramnami Samaj performed chantings from Ramcharitmanas on the occasion.
Durga Puja Connect app is a mobile-first digital platform that links the devotee standing before the pandal with a global audience of admirers and the diaspora. Built around three actions — Discover, Participate and Showcase — it allows users anywhere in the world to explore pujas and the stories behind them, to join a living virtual community that crosses borders, and to pin themselves on a worldwide devotee map by saying, simply, ‘I’m here with Chaltabagan’.
The platform is designed around the four living pillars by which the festival carries itself forward — cultural expression, social harmony and inclusion, ritual and belief, and living tradition — and it will maintain a lasting digital archive of each year’s celebration. Its stated ambition is one line: one app, one global community, one shared celebration.
Before there were temples, there was the body. That is the sentence at the centre of this year’s pandal.
“Chaltabagan has never been content to build a pandal; they try to build an idea and then invite the city to walk through it. Durga Puja does not belong to one street, one city or even one country any more. It is celebrated wherever Bengalis and friends of Bengal have made a home. Durga Puja Connect is our attempt to give that scattered celebration a single address — so that a family in Kolkata, a student in Berlin and a doctor in New Jersey can stand, for a few days each autumn, in the same room,” said Mr Shishir Bajoria, Core Team, BJP Videsh Vibhag; State Executive, BJP West Bengal; President, Inauguration Committee 2026, Chaltabagan Durga Puja
The announcements were made in the presence of committee officials including Ashok Jaiswal, President; Rajesh Bihani, Vice Chairman; and Rajesh Jaiswal, Secretary. Mahalaya falls on 10 October 2026, and the Chaltabagan pandal at Manicktala, North Kolkata, will open to visitors during the Puja days.
About Manicktala Chaltabagan Lohapatty Durga Puja
Founded in 1943 in the old iron quarter of Manicktala, North Kolkata, the Manicktala Chaltabagan Lohapatty Durga Puja has grown from a neighbourhood celebration into one of the city’s most closely watched pujas, with a long record of theme-led work and environmental subjects. Its honours include the Asian Paints Sharad Shamman for Best Puja and Best Artisan, induction into the True Spirit Puja Hall of Fame, and the Biswa Bangla Sharad Samman 2025 in the Sera Bhabna category. In 2025, ambassadors and high commissioners of eight countries visited the pandal.
About The Ramnami Samaj
The Ramnami Samaj is a devotional community of Chhattisgarh, founded in the 1890s, whose members inscribe the name of Ram across their bodies as a lifelong pledge of devotion and as a peaceful response to caste exclusion. They wear a block-printed odhni bearing the same inscription, gather annually for a Bhajan Mela, and recite the Ramcharitmanas. They are a devotional community, not a tribe.
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