Mahalaya is an auspicious day in the Hindu calendar, celebrated with great fervor and devotion in the Indian subcontinent, especially in West Bengal, India, and Bangladesh. It marks the beginning of Devi Paksha and the end of the Pitri Paksha, which is a period of mourning. Pitri Paksha is a 16-day lunar period during which people remember and pay homage to their ancestors using food and water offerings. On this day, Goddess Durga begins her journey from Mount Kailash, where she resides with her husband Lord Shiva, to her maternal home on Earth. The central theme of Mahalaya is based on a legend from the “Devi Mahatmya” (The Glory of the Goddess), an ancient Sanskrit text that is a part of the Markandeya Purana. This text narrates the story of the goddess Durga and her battle against the demon Mahishasura, a buffalo demon who terrorized the heavens and Earth. Bengalis celebrate Mahalaya with much fervor and remark intermittently about the festive autumn weather and the ‘pujo-pujo‘ feel. Every Bengali household wakes up early in the morning, even before the sun, to customarily listen to a collection of songs and mantras called ‘Mahishasura Mardini’, in the sonorous voice of Birendra Krishna Bhadra. These mantras invoke the Goddess, and the most famous one is Jago Tumi Jago.