2024-10-14 11:29:00
Debjyoti Paul, an IT professional originally from Calcutta, first came to Sweden as a consultant in 2014.
“There are a lot of people like me, IT professionals from India, who ended up here for the same reason,” he told The Local.
“When we were here, we started to miss our traditional things. We would see the photos and videos on Facebook or on the news and think ‘let’s try to do something here too’.”
In 2019, Paul founded Sambandh, an Indian and Bangladeshi cultural organisation, which has now grown to become one of the largest Indian organizations in Europe, with over 400 members.
“There’s an interesting story behind the name,” he said. “Sambandh in Hindi means connection or relationship. And it means connection in Swedish, so we thought the name was appropriate to cover and connect with both communities: through this we connect to our roots and traditions, and it’s also an opportunity for us to involve local communities.”
The local attended Sambandh’s Durga Puja event in Helsingborg, also known as Durgotsav, to find out how important events like this, and cultural associations in general, are to making immigrants feel at home in Sweden.
“This event is Durgotsav and has a mythological background,” Paul said. “It’s a traditional Hindu event, so it has a religious perspective, although nowadays it’s more of a cultural and food festival.”
Announcement
The festival celebrates the goddess Durga, created by the gods to slay a demon that no man could kill.
“The reason we celebrate this, in one line, is the victory of truth over evil and good over evil,” Paul explained.
A sign at the entrance to the Sambandh Durgotsav in Helsingborg. Photo: Becky Waterton/The Local
During Durga Puja, an annual festival lasting up to ten days, celebrated mainly in West Bengal and surrounding states, idols traditionally created from clay are placed on elaborately decorated shrines known as pandalswhich are often focused on current events.
In recent years pandals in India have included a life-size replica of an underwater metro station (complete with escalators) in Calcutta and a Titanic-themed pandal in Baranagar, West Bengal, large enough to walk inside. The Durga Puja in Copenhagen in 2022 was centered around the iconic multi-coloured buildings of Nyhavn in the Danish capital.
In 2021 it was declared part of the “Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity” by the United Nations cultural agency UNESCO.
At the end of the celebration, the idols are immersed, the raw clay melts and returns to the river from which it originally came.
THE pandal at the Helsingborg event, the fifth of Sambandh, there was a more traditional variant, with the goddess Durga together with her two sons and two daughters.
“The daughters are Lakshmi and Saraswati and the sons are Kartik and Ganesh,” Paul said as he showed The Local the pandal in Helsingborg.
Sambandh idols, however, are not made of clay, but of fibreglass. They were shipped from India and are reused every year, and each year a small clay head is made and dipped to replicate this part of the tradition.
For Paul, Sambandh events – around ten or eleven a year – are a great way to celebrate his Indian heritage, but also to help him feel more at home in Sweden.
Announcement
“We meet people with similar backgrounds. We enjoy what we enjoyed in the first half of our lives. We all miss our home, the food we have there and all that kind of stuff, but through these events, we get the opportunity to experience the atmosphere of India, here in Sweden.”
That’s not the only benefit, though. Paul also said the events are a great way to reach out to the local community and share Indian culture with local Swedes.
“We love it when the locals come,” he said. “On Saturday we had almost 35 or 40 Swedes who came and really enjoyed themselves. Some of them were there last year and they themselves were wondering when it will happen this year.”
“It’s really nice to be able to connect and showcase our culture and heritage, and we encourage our children to participate as well,” she added.
“We spent 30 or 40 years in India, we saw that culture, but our children are starting here and they haven’t had the chance to understand the culture and heritage that we have… They like to participate in cultural events, even a two-year-old child participates in fashion shows wearing traditional Indian clothing.”
“For my son, the coolest part is having more time to be with other kids,” she added.
Announcement
Sambandh not only hosts events for the Indian community but also encourages its members to take part in Swedish events as well.
“We have Christmas in December, we involve all members in events like Midsummer. We don’t host them ourselves, but we all participate in these kind of events, the National Day celebrations in Sweden, Saint Lucia. I think that way the children they are enriched more by different cultures, they have different perspectives and this is a good way to make them more complete.”
The local municipality was also very supportive of Sambandh, providing funding and support through Inva-Sam, an umbrella organization for ethnic and immigrant associations in Helsingborg.
“The president of Inva-Sam was at our event yesterday,” Paul said. “We get a lot of guidance from them, like what needs to be done, what rules need to be followed. So if we need a venue, they help us find the location to hold these events. They’re really, really helpful.”
The Indian ambassador to Sweden and the mayor of Helsingborg also regularly attend Sambandh events.
Announcement
“We get a lot of people from the local community, the local Swedish community and other communities,” Paul said.
While technically a Hindu event, Durgotsav celebrations are open to all, regardless of your religious background.
“In India, this event is attended by people of all different religions. A lot of Muslims are involved, a lot of the food side of the event, a lot of Christians are involved in different ways, so it’s a melting pot of all religions,” he said.
For Paul it is also important that the Sambandh event in Helsingborg reflects this.
“When we send out invitations, we try to have people from different communities, different religions, and we feel better that way we can include and invite everyone.”
Durga Puja is not the only festival with international roots taking place this month. Here you are a guide to some of the Diwali events organized all over Sweden – and here’s a guide the best places to celebrate Halloween.
#celebrating #native #culture #feel #connected #Sweden