Bhoomi : The Modern Voice of Bengal

bhoomi bangla band - surojit, soumitra, sanjoy, abhijit, hemantoBengali music found its new voice through band music that has recently proliferated across the land and one of the pioneers of this music is “Bhoomi” the legendary band from Kolkata. The key to Bhoomi’s success is their use of Bengali folk tunes and enrich them using modern musical arrangements. The six member team, with occasional guest artists, have been entrancing their audiences since 1999 with their captivating music. Folk musicals styles like baul, bhatiyali , moishaal, jhumur,saari gaan and qawaali constitutes the primary source of inspiration for Bhoomi’s music. Continue reading

BSL : Bangla as a Second Language

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. Continue reading

Bangla E-Zines


The proliferation of internet and web technology has ushered in a new era in the publication of Bengali literary magazines. Any Bengali who has the slightest inclination towards Bangla literature must have been associated with some kind of “little magazine” related activity in some point of their life, be it writing, editing, publishing or even selling them to their patronizing clients. The thrill of seeing ones own writing in print fascinated them and hence whenever a few like minded folks got together, a visit to the printing press became obligatory. The smell of ink and the clanking of the printing machines was intoxicating to say the least – long hours were spent proof reading those smudgy newsprint and trying to pool in as much money they could by either begging the local business owners to insert an advertisement or by coughing up their own savings to pay the press owner. But the exponentially growing costs of paper and printing has often resulted in an untimely death of the magazine and hence the death of many literary dreams. Many of these talents also whither away just because they do not get the opportunity to be noticed by any of the leading print publications. Continue reading

A Mini Theater Festival


On June 28th and 29th, ECTA Inc. will be presenting a mini theater festival of three plays. On 29th June, an encore presentation of the highly acclaimed play “Satyameva” will be held at 3.30pm. This play has received great reviews both in Kolkata and USA and has been recently made into a Telefilm (titled Satyasotyo for Tara channel) by the reputed actor and director of Kolkata, Chandan Sen. Watch the promo video by clicking the image above.

On 29th, the festival features two shows of two plays each. The first play, Ashomoy, is a novel audio-visual presentation by Theater Practitioners of Cleveland OH, directed by the veteran All India Radio and Doordarshan artist Saubhik Sen. “Ashomoy” will be followed by “Taconic Parkway“, a one act play by ECTA Inc. “Taconic Parkway” is a dark play of an immigrant Bengali couple and a visiting actor from India. The play premieres at the California Natyamela on June 7th, 2008.

Synopsis of the plays and other details are given below. Seating is limited, hence please book your seats as early as possible.
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