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Jagaddhatri Puja in Chandannagar
Chandannagar's great puja of lights, in the town where the syrup-filled jolbhora sandesh was first made.
Cheeses for Jagaddhatri Puja in Chandannagar
Jagaddhatri Puja is celebrated a month after Durga Puja, most famously in Chandannagar and Krishnanagar in West Bengal, where the processions of lights draw visitors from across the state. Chandannagar is also known for sweets: jolbhora sandesh, a chhena sweet with a hidden centre of syrup or liquid date-palm jaggery, is said to have been created by a sweet-maker in the town in the nineteenth century. During the puja, local shops sell it in quantity, alongside plain sandesh and rasgulla. The festival tide of sweets is a reminder that chhena is the everyday cheese of Bengal.
The cheeses
Written by the EveryCheese desk with AI assistance. Background: "Jagaddhatri Puja" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.