BSL : Bangla as a Second Language

November 18, 2008 on 11:25 pm | In Arts-Culture |

I had often been requested to write plays for our children. With our kids in mind, few years ago I wrote a play titled BSL or Bangla as a Second Language. BSL is a hilarious short play for children (pre-teens, teens, young adults) of Bengali origin. Neil, Nick, Jay and Seema live in USA. But like all children of Bengali speaking parents, they are being forced to learn Bengali (or Bangla) against their will. Neil, the most innovative and smart kid he is, invents a device that can make one learn Bangla (or any other language) in seconds. Nick agrees to be the first guinea pig for the trials of this machine and the results are - quite unexpected to say the least. The play was successfully staged during the Durga puja celebrations of Kallol few years ago. I have also received several requests from the Bengalis living in different parts of the country to make the play available for their children.

Although the script has been published earlier in the India Doot Saradiya magazine, unfortunately the magazine circulation is less than adequate to reach the right people. Hence to make the script available to a larger readership, I have uploaded it on Scribd.com and can be downloaded or read here.