The best thing about the year 2020 is that it’s gone. After such a difficult year, we all needed the blessings of Goddess Kali to begin the new year with new hopes and aspirations. I really wanted to go somewhere peaceful along with my family and bring the positive vibes.
Karunamayi Kali Mandir (Kali temple) seemed just the right place to visit.
Address: Amdanga-Bira Rd, Arkhali, West Bengal 743221
Phone: 03216 260 840
Direction – Find here
We booked a cab from our place to Amdanga Kalibari. The route was pretty much straight forward. After many months of staying in a closed room, finally I was able to breathe some fresh air. It was weekend and roads were moderately empty. Once we reached the place, we bought buckets with of fruits, vegetables, flowers, candle, incense stick and a piece of holy cloth (the complete bucket is called Dala) to offer to Goddess. There were some small sweet shops as well.
If you like to offer some sweets, you can also bring that from a store of your choice. It’s not mandatory to buy sweets from there itself. We talked to driver uncle to park the car nearby and entered into the temple premise.
After entering the gate we saw 2 separate establishments, a natural pool and a huge lawn with decade-old tress around.
We stood in queue in front of the main temple along with our buckets. Luckily, there was not much rush and we could enter into the temple within half an hour!
Once you enter the temple in a queue, you have to make a cash payment for the puja (I did not see any online payment facility there) and a person will hand you a token accordingly. He will also ask your name and gotra and note it down in a notebook.
When the actually is done, these names are mentioned by the priest along with the mantras.
After getting our names in the notebook, we climbed the stares to 1st floor. We placed our buckets on a table in front the main room, offered our prayers. The priest came in, performed the puja and gave us flowers from the feet of Goddess. We gave few things from our buckets there and took the rest with us.
The Sandhya Arati/evening prayer was supposed to happen at 6 PM, before that we checked out the other temples.
There were 10+ Shiva temples there, in the ground floor of the same building. There’s a huge hall as well in the back-side. This might get packed with visitors on special occasions.
Then we visited the Radha-Krishna temple which is the other establishment in the premise.
Finally it was time for the evening prayer. I am so glad that I stayed till that time. Evening prayer is indeed very beautiful in any temple. The rhythmic sound of the temple bells paired with the drums will definitely make you forget about your current life!
Amdanga Kalibari became one of my favorites for many reasons like – simple route, not extremely crowded as the other popular temples, offers the peace and beauty of countryside, commercialism has still not overpowered the spiritual aspect of the temple.
We were not allowed to take pictures inside the main temple, you can find insider photo here.
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