A TASTE of one of the most important festivals in India has come to Basingstoke.

Durga Puja was celebrated at Brookvale Village Hall, in Lower Brook Street, over the weekend.

Durga Puja is the ceremonial worship of the mother goddess and the event at the village hall is put on by a small group of Indians mostly from the Bengal, Bihar, and Tripura regions of the sub-continent living in and around Basingstoke and Reading. Basingstoke Durga dates back to 2006.

More than 250 people came along to the event over the course of the weekend to take part in prayers, singing, dancing, musical performances and, on the Sunday, a drama called Maa Kali Boarding.

Sunday morning also included the age old ritual of Sindoor Khela in which women smear each other with Sindoor (vermillion) on the last day of the Durga Puja, as part of the Bengali Hindu tradition.

Visitors to the event came from as far afield as Cambridge, Kent and Manchester.