The king who could not hold a horse sacrifice (Taherpur, and Shobhabazar 1757)
Raja Kangsanarayan of Taherpur, under Akbar, wants to hold a great royal sacrifice; his scholar Ramesh Shastri says the Rajasuya and Vishvajit are for an emperor and the horse and cow sacrifices are forbidden in the Kali age, and that the autumn Durga Puja is this age's sacrifice, as Suratha and Rama proved. He spends eight or nine lakh rupees on it; Jagatnarayan of Bhaduria answers with a spring puja. Kolkata tells how Nabakrishna Deb's puja after Plassey, with Clive invited, made the festival the city's.
Kangsanarayan, raja of Taherpur in Rajshahi under Akbar, fears misfortune from his stars and, unreassured by the emperor, asks his pandits for a great atoning sacrifice. Ramesh Shastri of Basudevpur, a tantric scholar, says the scriptures know the Vishvajit, Rajasuya, Ashvamedha and Gomedha: the first two are not for a king under an emperor, the last two are forbidden in the Kali age and were kshatriya rites of another time. Seeing the raja downcast he names the Durgotsav as the great sacrifice of the Kali age, yielding the fruit of all sacrifices, as Suratha found in the Satya age and Rama in the Treta age with his untimely worship before Lanka. The raja holds a lavish autumn puja, spending eight and a half lakh (other accounts: eight to nine lakh; nine lakh) rupees, which is talked of across India; Shastri is called the first author of the modern puja procedure. Jagatnarayan of Bhaduria follows with a grand Basanti Puja in Suratha's manner. Today one temple ruin and an old pond remain at Taherpur, with a family shrine of metal images beside the wall; the palace is a college.
Nabakrishna Deb, Persian teacher to Hastings and a confidant of Clive who profited from the fall of Siraj-ud-Daulah, began the Shobhabazar Rajbari in 1757 and held an annual Durga Puja there; Clive attended after Plassey and Hastings was on the guest list. A popular account says the puja was arranged for Clive's thanksgiving because the town's only church had been destroyed by the Nawab, and that Clive objected he was a Christian. Dancers from Muslim gharanas performed; English guests were served beef, ham and liquor. The puja became a status symbol for the rising merchant houses, which built their own thakur dalans and customs (a cannon at the Sandhi Puja at the Daw house; Kartik in English breeches and a nilkantha bird released on Dashami, now clay, at Shobhabazar; the Sabarna Roy Choudhurys of Barisha since 1610). Guptipara's twelve friends held the first baroyari puja around 1790 (or 1761); the first sarbajanin puja was at Balaram Basu Ghat Road in 1910; UNESCO inscribed Kolkata's Durga Puja in 2021.
What is different here:
A different founder, city and century: not the first puja but the one that made it Kolkata's and a fashion for the merchant houses; the Englishmen in the hall.
Sources: bdnews24 (Bengali opinion): Kangsanarayan, Ramesh Shastri and the sacrifice of the Kali age; The Business Standard (Dhaka): Tahirpur, the fabled birthplace of Durga Puja in Bengal; Durga Puja, Bengali Wikipedia (history section); United News of Bangladesh via Hinduism Today: Taherpur's Durga Puja heritage; The Daily Star (2008): Taherpur, prospects of becoming a tourist hot-spot; Durga Puja, Banglapedia; Nabakrishna Deb, Wikipedia; Shobhabazar, Wikipedia