The Gulshan-Banani Sarbojanin Puja Foundation has chosen "Jalaja," meaning "born of water," as this year's Durga Puja theme, drawing on water's spiritual significance and its role in sustaining life.
Architect Amiti Kundu and artist-researcher Partho Pratim Saha planned, designed, and supervised the pandal at Kemal Ataturk Park in Banani. The press release says it will welcome people of every faith and background during the six-day autumn festival.
The theme links water's religious symbolism to Bangladesh's landscape and culture, shaped by rivers, rain, ponds, wetlands, and the sea.
Earth is the only planet known to support life, and water is essential to its existence. Scientific accounts of life's origins place water at the centre of that story, and Vedic sages also understood it as a primordial principle of creation.
The Nasadiya Sukta of the Rigveda evokes a pre-creation state: an expanse of water shrouded in darkness. In Sanatan thought, apa, or water, is one of the five great elements, known as the panchamahabhuta.
Within this tradition, water represents purity and the divine and plays a central role in sacred rites. From the waters of the womb to the final offering on the banks of the Ganges, it accompanies the human life cycle.
Water is integral to auspicious beginnings and rituals including ghatasthapana, tarpan, homa and self-purification.
The theme also draws on the Sri Sri Chandi's description of the Goddess as "Trishnarupena Sansthita", invoking her presence as thirst. This imagery connects the yearning that sustains life with the lotus rising through water and the manifestation of Goddess Durga.
This vision takes architectural form in an expansive aquatic landscape that combines engineering, cottage crafts, lighting, and ornamentation.
Bamboo, cane, natural fibres, and jute create a multilayered, undulating setting that surrounds visitors like a great swell of waves held still.
The journey from the entrance to the inner sanctum is conceived as a spiritual passage, moving from nature's turbulent waves toward stillness at the Mother's feet.
Waterfalls, reflection pools, and lighting will shape the atmosphere.
At the centre will stand a large lotus-shaped structure, with Goddess Durga, the primal power or Adyashakti, appearing against a conch-shell backdrop, evoking a white lotus blooming from the depths of water.
Indigo blue, terracotta red, and straw beige form this year's colour palette and foundation design elements, reflecting the relationship between water and earth.
Beyond its religious meaning, "Jalaja" carries a message of environmental responsibility.
The organisers highlight the pressures that climate change, river encroachment and pollution place on water systems. In riverine Bangladesh, protecting water is closely tied to safeguarding livelihoods, cultural heritage and future generations.
The theme calls on visitors to reconnect with nature and recognise water protection as part of protecting life itself.
Bringing together water, the lotus, sacred ritual and the thirst that sustains existence, the celebration offers a prayer to Goddess Durga: free the world from thirst, protect life and nature, and grant humanity the power to create rather than destroy.