Human history was on the last decade of 19th century. The time period was one of the golden periods of Bengal flourishing in spirituality, literature, arts, science, mysticism, nationalism etc. Late 19th century Bengal must be equated with the rise of nationalism, education, ideas, enlightenment and empowerment. Bengali legendary names emerged in this era are like Ma Sarada Devi, Vivekananda, Bank
im Chandra Chattopadhyay, Girish Chandra Ghosh, Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose, Rabindranath Tagore, Rishi Aurobindo Ghosh etc. and many more were still walking on their feet on this great soil of Bengal. Subhash Chandra Basu, Satyendra Nath Bose, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Sarala Devi Chaudhurani, Pritilata Waddedar and many were their notable successors. During this era, these visionaries were roaring on their peak in the process of reforming the society of Bengal and Bharatvarsh on human progress and spiritual evolution through their intellect, outlook, social work etc. Embedded in this was a severe pushback of anti-West conservatism and a harking back to Hindutva that formed the core of a parallel, exclusionary nationalism. Vandemataram already became a household blood boiler in this period. During this time in 1893, inspired by the above legends, blood boiled energetic
youths in the village of Padmarajpur (currently known as Podrah) in Bengal, decided the uplift the spirituality among the people of the area. Thus, they established the Padmarajpur Mahakali Mandir in 1893. (currently known as Podrah Kali Mandir). Later, in 1923, the mandir also started celebrating Durga Puja every year, alongside Kali Puja. Since then, the tradition is continuing and this year in May-2022 we celebrated the completion of 130 years of Kali Puja and Mandir. Along side, in August-2022 we are going to celebrate 100 years of Durga Puja. I and our team are extremely proud to boast that we are the successors of those young energetic youths from 1893, carry forwarding this age-old tradition till today.