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Website afloat on Durga blessings
Jaidev Majumdar
Calcutta, August 4: If you thought dotcoms launched on a wing and a prayer, you are wrong: some actually set sail on an oar and an invocation. I discovered this quite by chance. I had been asked to cover an innocuous ship-launch ceremony and was therefore, slouching along the banks of the Hoogly in search of my port of call. But while I could spot neither ship nor sail (later I learned that the ship launch had been cancelled) I could see a crowd creating quite a commotion halfway upriver. Quickly jumping ship in terms of priority, I squelched down closer to river-only to discover that a Website was being launched, quite literally, on a country boat, in the middle of the river! I goggled. For, even as a background score of Mahalaya invoked Goddess Durga at a high pitch, there was this bunch of techies-I think I saw a ponytail flash-logging into the Website through a laptop and a mobile phone. It may seem weird, but actually it made sense.The Website enterpujo.com, is after all, all about Durga Puja, the main festival of Bengalis. Since the high point is the immersion of Goddess Durga's image in the Ganga-why not make an auspicious start on the river too? Close investigations on dry land revealed that the portal was actually launched last year, with a narrow focus on Durga Puja. Today, the site was actually celebrating the birth of a new avtaar: in a secular expansion strategy it would now highlight all other festivals too and thus keep an open line going with the Lord all year round. For enterpujo.com, the aim is simple. Cash in on that hoary Bengali chestnut "Baro mashe tero parbon": 13 festivals in 12 months. Built at an estimated cost of Rs 5 lakh, the portal with more than 50 pages on offer is focussing keenly on this year's Durga Pujo. Some godly goodies: it will offer reviews on 15 festival numbers as well as reviews of cassettes released during the pujas. Net surfers can even listen to songs from the cassettes. Puja vacationing, entertainment, cuisine, sweets, fashion, on-line voting, pandal hopping, e-greetings all figure prominently in enterpujo.com. enterpujo.com has upgraded its software and "downloading each page won't take more than 35 seconds" promises Srimanta Choudhuri, editor of enterpujo.com. The portal also has plans to show Calcuttans how Durga Puja is celebrated abroad. "This time we have talked to our friends overseas who will send scanned photographs of Durga images in countries like USA and Australia. This will be something unique for the Calcuttans," Choudhuri said. Last year, enterpujo.com had roped in Berger paints and Priya biscuits as its principal sponsors. This year, the dotcom claims it plans to market itself more aggressively. Some things can't be left to God. Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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