He visited five Durga Puja pandals out of the thousands that are being organised across the city.
And before he left for Kolkata airport to catch a flight back to the US, he said he will tell everybody back home about the Durga Puja in the city.
Meet principal deputy assistant secretary, US department of state bureau of consular affairs David T. Donahue who went pandal-hopping on Thursday evening (panchami).
According to him, this vibrant city, is worth exploring as far as tourism is concerned.
Donahue on Thursday visited five Durga Puja pandals in South Kolkata and he could not hide his excitement and tried playing the Dhaak and Dhamsa madol at two Puja pandals.
Read:How the differently-abled and the elderly experience Bengal’s biggest festival
The year has been declared as the “US-India Travel & Tourism Partnership Year”. In view of this declaration, Donahue visited some of the Durga Puja pandals in the city to explore tourism potentialities in eastern and northeast India and to honour and enjoy this great cultural and historical festival.
Before leaving for the airport, Donahue said, “I am going to tell everybody. People are looking for something different, exciting and something exotic.” According to Donahue, it will be great to bring up Kolkata and Bengali people for other to understand.
{{/usCountry}}Before leaving for the airport, Donahue said, “I am going to tell everybody. People are looking for something different, exciting and something exotic.” According to Donahue, it will be great to bring up Kolkata and Bengali people for other to understand.
{{/usCountry}}After hopping from one pandal to another, Donahue said, “I am disappointed that I have lived this long in my life and never heard of this (Durga Puja) before. He said that he came to know about the Durga Puja festival from one of his office mates who was originally from India after that person gave him a childrens’ book on Durga.
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This is a wonderful thing for children to read and understand the culture. After visiting a pandal depicting the topic of women empowerment, Donahue said, “I have two daughters and I strongly believe in empowering them.”
“It’s nice, it’s beautiful and it’s something exciting where people learn how they can be better their societies,” he said.
After taking a walk from one Pandal to another, he said that he has seen many connections between Durga Puja in Kolkata and other festivals around the world, such as the Chinese New Year, the carnival and other festivals across the world. “They attract millions of people across the world. If people knew, they would have definitely come here,” Donahue said.
He also took a few pictures of idols and pandals and said the festive mood of the city reminded him of places like Singapore, Shanghai and Hong Kong.
Speaking about 2017 which will be the year of tourism between India and the US, Donahue said, “We want to do everything we can to promote tourism during that time.”