By family custom, a jackfruit must be placed on the goddess's offering plate during the puja. But during the coronavirus period, and out of season, a jackfruit is hard to find. With no other way, the family ordered one online, and the jackfruit has now arrived. The incident took place in Jhargram town in West Bengal, India.

Citing Anandabazar, the report says the Sen family of Bachhurdoba in Jhargram needs a jackfruit for the offering plate at its puja. For the 194-year-old family puja, the much-needed fruit could not be found, so it was ordered online. It later reached the Sen family packaged, through a private company.

According to the Sen family, the puja was started in the Bengali year 1235 at Akuapara in Mymensingh, East Bengal, by Ramratan Sen Sharma, a man of great property. Although the family profession was kaviraj medicine, Ramratan was dewan to Maharaja Surjakanta Acharya Chowdhury of Mymensingh. At that time the offering plate at the family puja always held a jackfruit. The tradition was broken after Partition, when Ramratan's descendants moved to Jhargram, and the puja began there in the early 1950s.

Debabrata Sen, a young member of the family, said that there is a custom of offering the out-of-season jackfruit at the Akal Bodhan puja, but jackfruit is not available in the Jhargram market in the month of Ashwin. It used to be brought from Kolkata. Last year, because of the coronavirus, getting a jackfruit was very difficult, so this year the family bought one online in advance from a company in Bengaluru. Mango is offered to the goddess on Ashtami and jackfruit on Navami.

Source: Samakal. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.