দুর্গাপূজার ইতিহাস ও সূচনা নিয়ে গল্প

What does “ঢাক” mean in Bengali?

ঢাক is the large barrel drum slung from the shoulder and beaten with two thin sticks at Durga Puja. For Bengalis the word is less an instrument than a season: ঢাক বাজে (“the dhak sounds”) is shorthand for the festival being here. The person playing it is a ঢাকি, and that -ই ending runs right through Bengali job words.

Don’t confuse it with ঢোল, the smaller two-headed drum of weddings and processions — different instrument, different occasion. This clip works backwards from that opening sound into the history: who held Bengal’s first Durga Puja, when Kolkata’s first was staged, when British officials began attending, and where today’s থিম পূজা (theme-built pandals) came from.