Understanding Culture and Context Around Pujo
Turning cultural distance into a storytelling opportunity.
Celebrating isn’t the same as understanding.
I grew up Bengali in Jamshedpur. I celebrated Chhath and Durga Puja, but celebrating a tradition and understanding the stories behind it aren’t necessarily the same thing.
That disconnect made me curious about the context I hadn’t grown up with. And I realised there were probably other people who wanted the same thing for different reasons: people living away from home, people reconnecting with their culture, and people who simply wanted to know more about it.
So I started exploring the stories behind Pujo.
Where does the story begin?
I don’t assume that sharing a language or cultural background means everyone knows the same things. Someone might know the rituals but not the history. Someone else might know very little about the festival but be fascinated by the story behind a particular tradition.
I think about the audience’s awareness of the subject and use that to decide where the story should begin. Pick a viewer:
They’re starting from scratch, so the opening has to make the subject feel worth a few seconds before it explains anything.
They know the rituals but not the reasons. The hook is the missing piece of something they thought they already understood.
They’re here for connection, so the story starts somewhere familiar and then adds the history and context that deepen it.
My interpretationThese three mindsets are how I think about audience awareness. They aren’t formal research segments.
Strategic positioning, looking back
Instead of only showing the celebration, what if I explored the stories behind it?
The Blue Ocean Strategy “Four Actions” framework asks what you’d eliminate, reduce, raise and create compared with what everyone else does. In plain English: it’s a way of finding the space nobody’s standing in.
Retrospective framingI didn’t run this exercise before making the series. I’m using it now to explain the positioning more clearly.
The usual
Cultural content has to rely only on celebration footage.
What I drop
That assumption. The festival looks great, but it isn’t the only story available.
The usual
Coverage that shows a lot and explains little.
What I turn down
Context-free coverage. Pretty images with no “why” attached.
The usual
General, broad strokes about “the culture”.
What I turn up
Cultural specificity, research and narrative clarity.
The usual
Long explainers for people already deep in the subject, or surface-level festival posts.
What I add
Accessible short-form stories that connect history with identity and lived experience.
The hook gets them curious
The hook gets someone curious. The context gives them a reason to stay.
I experiment with narration, visual and sound hooks, but I don’t want the story to stop at the interesting opening. I want the viewer to leave knowing something they didn’t know before, or seeing something familiar differently.
What the comments taught me
From comments and DMs, I’ve seen that nostalgia and discovery can go together. Someone might watch because a story reminds them of home. Someone else might watch because they never knew there was a story there in the first place.
Different reasons to arrive. One reason to stay: the story has something to give them.
My interpretationThis is how I read audience feedback. It isn’t a claim about every viewer.
Culture can be the subject of a story. It can also be the reason someone feels seen.