Stories you can finish this Puja: long listens for the five Puja days

A thick book with a glossy cover. A new Feluda inside it. For a long time that was what the Puja holidays looked like in a Bengali house. Wikipedia's article on Feluda notes that nearly every Feluda story first came out in the Puja annuals, Pujabarshiki Sandesh and Desh, and only later as a book. The holiday and the long read arrived together, and the whole point of the five days was that there was finally time to finish something.

That is still the best use of the Puja, and it is the one thing a phone full of short clips will quietly take away from you. Pick one long story this year and see it through to the end. The ones we would choose are below, sorted by how much time you really have, each with its running time from our catalogue, so you know what you are signing up for.

If you can give it all five Puja days

Start with Apu. Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay's Pather Panchali first ran as a serial in Bichitra, a Calcutta monthly, in 1928 and came out as a book the next year; its sequel, Aparajito, followed in 1932. Mir Afsar Ali's channel has both in its Goppo Mir-er Thek series, in two parts each, and together they come to 12 hours 54 minutes. Across the five Puja days that is about two and a half hours a day, roughly a pandal queue and a half.

There is one more reason to choose it now. The girl at the heart of Pather Panchali, Apu's elder sister, is called Durga. She runs wild through the woods and orchards of Nischindipur for most of the book, and anyone who has read it or seen Ray's film knows how her story goes. To listen to her during the days when Bengal waits for the other Durga to come home is to hear the book a little too close to the bone.

▶2:13:04Play: Pather Panchali, part 1

Pather Panchali, part 1

Mir Afsar Ali

Mir Afsar Ali's channel, Goppo Mir-er Thek series: part 1 runs 2 hours 13 minutes and part 2 2 hours 56. Aparajito follows in two parts of about four hours each. Start on Shashthi evening.

▶ Play hereWatch on YouTube · Mir Afsar Ali

The other five-day choice is Samaresh Majumdar. His Kaalbela won the Sahitya Akademi Award for Bengali in 1984, and it is the second book of the Animesh quartet that begins with Uttaradhikar. Our collection has Uttaradhikar in two parts, 5 hours 46 minutes, and Kaalbela from part 2 to the ninth and final part, 12 hours 34 minutes. Part 1 of Kaalbela is not in our collection yet; it is on Mir Afsar Ali's YouTube channel. In our collection the two books come to 18 hours 19 minutes, the longest listen on this page, and with part 1 longer still: Animesh's story across two books, for anyone who wants the whole holiday spoken for.

▶1:39:47Play: Kaalbela, part 2

Kaalbela, part 2

Mir Afsar Ali

Mir Afsar Ali's channel: 1 hour 40 minutes, the first part of Kaalbela we carry. Finish Uttaradhikar first if you can.

▶ Play hereWatch on YouTube · Mir Afsar Ali

If you have one long evening

One Byomkesh novel as an audio drama is exactly a Puja evening with nowhere to be. Mirchi Bangla's Sunday Suspense Chiriakhana runs 5 hours 5 minutes. Saradindu Bandyopadhyay published the novel in 1953, and Ray filmed it in 1967 with Uttam Kumar as Byomkesh; Wikipedia's page on the film has the premise: a retired judge's nursery called Golap Colony, full of people with a past, and a missing actress. If you know the film, you know the faces, but five hours give the story room that no film had.

Adim Ripu, which Wikipedia's Byomkesh list dates to 1955, is the other long one, 4 hours 52 minutes, and a darker book. For the family, Sunil Gangopadhyay's Kakababu in Sabuj Dweep-er Raja runs 3 hours 54 minutes and is the easiest of these to leave playing while the rest of the house gets dressed. Every Byomkesh we carry is on the Byomkesh page, and Kakababu on his.

▶5:04:41Play: Sunday Suspense: Chiriakhana

Sunday Suspense: Chiriakhana

Mirchi Bangla

Mirchi Bangla, 5 hours 5 minutes: a Byomkesh novel in one sitting. Put it on after the evening arati and see how far you get before the dhak outside stops.

▶ Play hereWatch on YouTube · Mirchi Bangla

If you have an afternoon

The lazy hours after bhog want something shorter. Baadshaahi Angti is, by Wikipedia's account, the first Feluda novel, serialised in Sandesh in 1966 and 1967 and set in Lucknow and then Haridwar, and Mirchi Bangla's version runs 2 hours 54 minutes. Byomkesh's Durgo Rahasya, 1952, runs 2 hours 32. Despite the name it has nothing to do with the goddess. Durgo is a fort, and a fort is where the trouble is.

Shortest of all, Professor Shonku's Eksringo Obhijaan, the unicorn expedition, is 1 hour 59 minutes on Sunday Suspense Classics, the right length for the drive to a far pandal. The rest of Shonku is on the Professor Shonku page.

And Taranath? He has a post of his own. Our guide to where to start with Taranath Tantrik has the long nights covered, and everything else of his is on the Taranath page. If Apu has won you over, more of Bibhutibhushan is waiting too, Aranyak first.

The Puja annual was never finished on Dashami. It sat by the bed into Lakshmi Puja and beyond, and nobody minded. If Apu's story is still going when the goddess leaves, keep going. The story does not end with the holiday. That was always the pleasure of it.

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