Hail a time-travelling taxi to Durga Puja

Asian Paints collaborates with St+art India to create travelling art on the iconic yellow taxis, bringing four decades of Sharad Shamman as an ode to Kolkata

10 Sep 2025

Namrata Dewanjee

As a Prabashi Bangali, the usual cliché is a longing to return to Kolkata during Durga Pujo. For me, though, this yearning never manifested too strongly. Yet every year, when the monsoon clouds recede and the skies turn a shade of unmistakably crisp blue, the air brings back memories of kaash phool and the buzz of something larger than life. Making my way back after two years, I expected a different city. Almost as if the urbanity of this colonial metropolis would warp and shift time in my absence. What I found waiting for me was a reckoning.

We were celebrating Asian Paints Sharad Shamman, Kolkata’s most prestigious award for the best Pujo pandal. The jubilant host told us how, 40 years ago, this tradition began and has since defined each generation, now exalted with art on the iconic yellow taxis. The initiative, supported by St+art India, honours narratives that might be lost to time elsewhere, but in Kolkata are unlikely ever to be forgotten. Only when he finished did I realise it was all in Bangla. It is strange, and almost amusing, how the mind slips back into patterns without our noticing. People often criticise Kolkata as a city stuck in incessant nostalgia, yet rarely complain about its near-biblical power to draw you in through a fervent sense of belonging. A siren song of sincere acceptance, from which you might never escape.

“When Asian Paints Sharad Shamman began in 1985, it set out to honour the imagination of Pujo”

Amit Syngle of Asian Paints

THE YELLOW TAXI STORY

To celebrate four decades of the awards, Asian Paints turned to a symbol inseparable from Kolkata’s Pujo journeys yet now fading from its streets: the yellow taxi. For generations, these cabs ferried families on pandal-hopping trails, carried artisans with straw and clay from Kumartuli and even transported Asian Paints Sharad Shamman judges through the city’s bustling para lanes. Forty taxis, each symbolising a decade of the awards, were transformed into travelling archives.

Inside, the intimacy of the pandal is evoked with curtains and wallpapers from the Asian Paints Royale range, under-seat lighting, UV accents and the shimmering finishes of Royale Glitz. Outside, the yellow remains visible, overlaid with motifs from each decade.The taxis will take to the streets during Pujo, upholstered in fabrics from Sabyasachi’s Paris Calcutta collection for Nilaya by Asian Paints. “We don’t see the taxi as just public transport, but as something deeply traditional and cultural. It has been an integral part of the Pujo journey, making it the perfect way to foster an emotional connection,” says Amit Syngle, MD and CEO of Asian Paints.

1985 – 1995

Over lunch, Derek O’Brien (whose quizzes defined my childhood), Sumit Roy and Subhash Mukhopadhyay dreamt this idea into existence. They decided that the artistry and stories behind the grandeur deserved to be celebrated. Thereafter, it grew into an unparalleled institution. The first advertisement ran in Kolkata in the late 1980s, a red decade in which Rajiv Gandhi described the city as a “dying” one, though, like most evolving urbanscapes, it was still coming to terms with its raucous history.

You might wonder what politics has to do with Pujo, but in the context of (then) Calcutta, the two were more entwined than one might imagine. It was the decade of Sarbojonin Puja, a democratic practice that moved away from the bonedi bari and its entrenched elitism. Bikramjit, the artist behind the first taxi, turned the focus to the artisans behind the scenes.

The first advertisement of Asian Paints Sharad Shamman in Anandabazar Patrika

1995 – 2005

Though barely cognisant, this was the decade of my first Pujo. My parents decided we would go pandal-hopping in the dead of night. As it turned out, so had the entire city. I wore new clothes and, regrettably, new shoes (the chafing at the end of the night has probably left a life-long scar.) This was a Pujo like no other. Brilliant Chandannagar LED lights shaped into parrots, flowers and symbols glowed and shimmered in endless spectacle. The walls, usually coated in graffiti or agitprop, vanished into the dark, surrendering the limelight to a city in celebration.

Yet, it would not be Kolkata (after the 2000s) without a draft of rock music. Bhoomi, Cactus, Lakkhichhara and Fossils were the bands you were not supposed to listen to, but did anyway. Tradition collided with a populous that thrived on chaotic anti-establishment fervour (or at least liked to think so). Meenakshi Sengupta, the artist behind the taxi of the second decade, captured this hubbub of an emerging scenography, abstracting its scale and exuberance.

Four decades long jouney of Asian Paints Sharad Shamman

2005 – 2015

While the previous decade had carved out the colossal scale of Pujo, this one blew it out of proportion. Traffic ground to a standstill. With crowds flying in from around the world, Kolkata had arrived on the world stage, if it had ever left. Sayan Mukherjee, artist and illustrator, brought this experience to life. In this decade, the pandal was as prominent as the protima.

As a rather snooty teenager, I wanted nothing more than to stay away. From global landmarks to famous temples, my city had become what seemed like a collection of themes. There were grand ideas and even grander executions. It would take me another decade to accept that what I then dismissed as kitsch carried implications no other urban condition could recreate.

2015 – 2024 (and 2025?)

You saw the phone before you saw the idol. Pandals existed as much in digital space as in physical. I was away from home, in architecture school in a city far too quiet for my liking. It was my first Pujo through a phone screen. Part of me was glad to be away from the crowds, yet another part could not suppress the envy. Srishti, an artist who never missed a celebration, channels this spirit through her first-hand account.

An extravagant Durga Pujo pandal in Kolkata; Photograph by Souhityo Das, Pexel

In 2020, everything changed. All the Prabashi Bangali were home, for the first time in years. When Pujo arrived, we remembered what we had missed. In 2021, UNESCO recognised Durga Puja as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. “When Asian Paints Sharad Shamman began in 1985, it set out to honour the imagination of Pujo,” reflects Amit. “Forty years later, it has become a living chronicle of Kolkata’s creative spirit. For us at Asian Paints, Kolkata has always been more than a city; it has been a muse, shaping our understanding of colour as culture and of homes as worlds of meaning. On this milestone year, the yellow taxi felt like the most fitting tribute, an everyday companion of Pujo that has carried families, artisans and stories across the city.”

As the world sets its focus on my old city, I wonder if I judged it too quickly. Over the next few days, everywhere I went was coloured in joy. From shopping malls playing the dhak through their speakers to perfumes launching new Pujo collections, even in the salon of my neighbourhood, someone asked me if I needed a “Pujo makeover”. It is almost unbelievable that a rather under-the-radar event, brought to Bengalis by Gattu in Anandabazar Patrika, would have anything to do with this. But it did.

Like all cities, Kolkata has a bad habit: it makes you feel as though you have arrived a little too late. Nostalgia is always in the making. As I drive to the airport, the sky takes on that irresistible crisp blue, and signboards carry the goddess’ tana chokh and benevolent smile. The thought is difficult to shake off: I had caught the bug of an indomitable longing to return.