COLLEGE PARK, Maryland — It’s October, the season of Durga Puja (Puja being Sanskrit for worship), the most important religious festival for Bengali-Hindus.

As a Non-Resident-Indian- first-generation-Bengali-settled-in-the-United States, I have a standard operating procedure for this time of the year. I go online, find out the venues (usually schools) and the dates (usually weekends) of each of the local Durga Pujos. I then use a complex algorithm, one that factors ...