ABSTRACT
A few weeks prior to the Durga Puja 1 in 2017, one of the most important and widely celebrated festivals amongst Bengalis, outrage and protest in equal measure broke out in social media over an advertisement of JH Salon – a chain of salons owned by well-known hairstylist Jawed Habib. The advertisement, containing the tagline “Gods too visit JH Salon”, was a cartoon illustration that depicted the goddess Durga with her four children – goddesses Saraswati and Laxmi, and gods Ganesh and Kartik – at the salon getting beauty treatments before the start of the festive season. Habib, a Muslim himself, not only faced severe criticism for insulting the Hindu gods and goddesses and hurting the sentiments of Hindus, on social media, in particular Facebook and Twitter, but one of his salons in Uttar Pradesh was even vandalized (IANS 2017). A case was registered against Jawed Habib, and subsequently he tendered a public apology (The Times of India 2017). Around the same time a YouTube channel called Bong Eats caused ire for posting an egg roll video as part of its Durga Puja special series (Bong Eats 2017), primarily because during this period 2 most Hindus, other than Bengalis, practice vegetarianism (Trends Desk 2017).
