By Dillip Pradhan & Rasmi Ranjan
Bhubaneswar/Cuttack: Pray to goddess, offer worship, have ‘Prasad’ and so on are the common sights, which are almost performed by the elders at every Puja pandal. But when it comes to the adults and kids, selfie with presiding idols is must.
The young pandal hoopers turn frenzied to click photos with the side idols along with their small kids. The idols near at the either side of the pandals-like monkey, bear, elephants, spiderman and the statues on the theme of mythology attract the eyeball of kids, who never bother the goddess and pandals.
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“Children express reluctance to stay a while at a pandal where side idols are not made. They really extract much of fun and amusement out of it”, a woman reveler Lopamudra Mohanty said.
“As a selfie lover, I have taken a number of pics with the idols and pandal. This puja has brought a good background for the photo shoot”, a visitor said.
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Be it Capital City’s Saheed Nagar pandal, Jharpada, Station Bazaar or Nayapalli or Cuttack’s Choudhury Bazar, Chandi Chowk, Badambadi or Malgodown-Chhatra Bazar- a crowd of kids and youngsters can be found taking selfie with the statues. In Meena Bazar, the swings (Doli) of different categories and circus are some other sights, where the young couples usually queue up.
Though the idols of wild animals like chimpanzee, monkey, lions, bear are the things of fear for the children, but some make fun out of these.
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Any pandal visitor can witness a virtually stiff competition among the youngsters to click a selfie in these places and sometimes the practice turns unsafe. The first and the foremost is the volume of self-consciousness and addictiveness the selfie-mania requires.
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There are several instances where people meet with an accident stung by this addictiveness. Take the example of Puja pandals and more often than not a majority of them are located in close proximity to main roads.
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With an objective to take that ‘perfect shot’ kids might overlook the traffic concern, and if it happens things may turn fatal.
Not only that, as these pandals are erected at a height from the ground and made up of wooden materials slipping off the stair is another phenomenon.