In the early ’70s, some prabashi (migrant) Bengalis who had settled in Mumbai’s western suburbs, Khar, Bandra and Santa Cruz, decided to organise a Durga puja of their own. Since Shakti Samanta was a big name, with a string of blockbusters like Kashmir Ki Kali, An Evening in Paris, Aradhana and Kati Patang, they reached out to him. Subsequently, the Notunpalli Sarbojanin Durgotsav Committee was formed with businessman Arun Banerjee as the first president, Shakti Samanta as the chief advisor and several Bollywood personalities, including filmmakers Pramod Chakraborty, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Basu Chatterjee and Basu Bhattacharya, actor Manik Dutta and composers Salil Chowdhury and RD Burman pitching in to host the first puja in 1972 at the Raosaheb Patwardhan Udyan, opposite Bandra’s Na

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