City of Lights

Chandernagore is a small, picturesque town an hour away by train from Calcutta. Known for its French settlement, the quiet suburb on the Hooghly riverside offers rare examples of architecture and has several sites of historical importance. In the context of the Durga Puja, though, the town is known for entirely different reasons: its tribe of light artisans.
As a young boy, this aspect of the Puja didn't really dawn upon me: I was more interested in looking at the pandal or the protima. Tripping out on these lights only started happening in my teen years.
I still remember 4am walks from a popular south Calcutta Puja hangout where I'd go drink stupid with my school friends and return home walking through the shimmy of these lights; their colours and patterns changing from one neighbourhood to
the next, but always keeping me company.
Something about the lights standing guard at lonesome pandals when everyone else has gone to sleep for the night still appeals to me.