Kolkata/IBNS-CMEDIA: They came from Chhattisgarh with the name of Ram tattooed across every inch of their bodies—elders of the Ramnami Samaj, a devotional community who began inscribing themselves in the 1890s as a quiet act of protest against temple exclusion.
As guests of honour at a Durga Puja theme launch in Kolkata, they were living proof that a faithfully carried mark can outlast everything used to suppress the people who bear it. Their presence spoke volumes about what followed.
The Manicktala Chaltabagan Lohapatty Durga Puja Committee on Monday announced Nishan — The Mark as the theme of its 84th Durga Puja, releasing alongside it a specially composed musical theme by Grammy Award winner and Padma Bhushan recipient 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.
The announcements were made by the Chairman of Chaltabagan Durga Puja, Sundeep Bhutoria, at a press conference in Kolkata in the presence of Pt. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Shri Shishir Bajoria and other dignitaries.
An elderly man from the Ramnami Samaj.
Speaking at the launch, Bhutoria said: “The theme, the music, the presence of the Ramnami Samaj and the Durga Puja Connect app are not separate announcements but one idea — a celebration of faith, sacred inscriptions, 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 in a North Kolkata street and the global connect. With the 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?”
Sundeep Bhutoria, Chairman of Chaltabagan Durga Puja.
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,” Aditi said.
A representative from the Ramnami Samaj.
“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 nine plants of the Nabapatrika that Bengal has worshipped for centuries.”
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. 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 — the Mohan Veena — that did not exist before I made it,” he said.
The members of the community performing at the launch.
The track has been created, recorded and mixed by Saurabh Bhatt, with 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.
The 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.
Sundeep Bhutoria, Chairman of Chaltabagan Durga Puja, (third from left) with the elders of the Ramnami Samaj.
“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,” said Shishir Bajoria, Core Team, BJP Videsh Vibhag; State Executive, BJP West Bengal; President, Inauguration Committee 2026, Chaltabagan Durga Puja.
“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.”
The announcements were made in the presence of committee officials including Ashok Jaiswal, President; Rajesh Bihani, Vice Chairman; and Rajesh Jaiswal, Secretary.
(Photos: Avishek Mitra/IBNS)
