Tag Archives: Bengali

Twitter – The Latest Craze in Micro-blogging

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In today’s world of minuscule attention span, writing and reading long blog articles are sure to lose popularity. After all the “text messaging” generation does not want to spend hours reading long drawn blog essays. Hence “micro-blogging” is the rave of the day and undoubtedly, the king of micro blogging is “Twitter”. The world blog comes from “Web Logs”, which implies that blogs are essentially online logs of the blogger ramblings, sort of like a diary or online journal. Twitter does just that, it allows users to write snippets (140 characters or less) of any message that you want to share with your friends of the world, and they get logged onto your home page. But the story does not end here. If you have a bunch of friends who are interested in you, who want to know what you are up to, who would like to “follow you”, they can link up with your “Tweets” and receive an update whenever you post something through tweeter. Check out my tweeter page http://twitter.com/bhawmik to figure out what I am talking about. For example, if you’d like to follow me, just click the link “follow”. You will of course have to sign up with Twitter before you can follow somebody. People who are familiar with Orkut scrapping or Facebook wall writing or status update should get the idea, except on Twitter you are doing a one-to-many messaging, rather than one-on-one with global access.
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Are you still Relevant?

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by Amitava Sen
He was standing there outside the Puja hall wearing a pained look, like he has been left on the wayside by the world and ignored. I knew the man well, not intimately but well enough over three decades. I have seen him in most of the Pujas since 1976. Part of his misery was the October chill in which he was made to wait. I empathized and asked him what’s going on. It appeared that he could not produce the computer print-out confirming his registration which he claimed to have made on line. Later, one of the officials relented and finally produced his entry badge. It all ended well, so I thought.
But the man remained nonplussed. I asked him not to take it too hard. Doesn’t he realize that he is passé and he is irrelevant now? The Puja officials are quite within their rights. His mistake was to expect a 1976 style congenial familiarity. Too bad that the changing of the guards has passed him by, un-noticed, again his mistake. Continue reading →

Some Reviews on ECTA’s Theater Festival

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Recently a bunch of reviews on ECTA’s mini Theater festival plays have been published in various news and online media both in USA and India. I would like to share them with you, since many may not have access to these publications, especially those which are published in India.

  • Gautam Dutta wrote about “Satyameva…” in Sambad Bichitra (published by CAB). The review is in Bengali and to read it click here.
  • Gayatri Gamarsh wrote about the second day of the festival in Ananda Sambad. Click here to read that review.
  • Alolika Mukherjee’s detailed review appeared in Saptahik Bartaman in Kolkata. Click here to read it.
  • Madhu Rye Thaker writes about Satyameva in India Abroad. Click here.
  • Jyotirmoy Dutta writes about ECTA and Taconic Parkway in DesiTalk. Click Here.
  • Sambit Basu writes about Taconic Parkway in his blog “Monk’s Pearl“.

The opinions expressed in these reviews are solely that of the reviewers themselves. They provide us with different perspectives, but they can never replace the actual viewing of the play and its enjoyment. Plays, films and any other objects of art should be viewed and appreciated on your own. To get an wonderful perspective on reviews, I recommend watching the fantastic animated film “Ratatouille” and listen to the final review by Anton Ego (Peter O’Toole) the dreaded food critic.

Bangla E-Zines

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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 →

Bangamela – The Festival for the Midwestern Bengalis

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Bangamela 2008Just as the excitement and euphoria of the recently concluded BangaSammelan (Toronto) dies down, Bengalis living in the middle western states are preparing to get into a festival of their own – Bangamela.

The 10th annual Bangamela 2008 will be held in Columbus OH this year from July 18 to 20. The event is hosted by COBCA (Central Ohio Bengali Cultural Association). Just as Bangasammelan (NABC) is franchised and sponsored by CAB (Cultural Association of Bengal), Bangamela is managed and controlled at the high level by MABA or Mid America Bengali Association. Without going into the details about the genesis of Bangamela, it suffices to say that the Bengalis of the mid west felt that they needed to have a festival of their own, a festival that is located closer to where they live and is easily accessible compared to NABC that tends to get most of their attendees from the densely populated (with Bengalis) east and west coast states. Continue reading →

CAB Honors Pronoy Chatterjee

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The Cultural Association of Bengal (CAB) every year honors a group of people for their outstanding contribution to the society. This year, one of our closest friends, Pronoy Chatterjee has been awarded the “Distinguished Service Award” for his contribution towards promoting and nurturing Bengali literature in North America. His award letter reads,

You are one of the foremost literary personality in the United States who has helped the cause of propagating and nurturing Bengali culture in North America, the goal the Cultural Association of Bengal cherish. You have done so as founder of NJPA and through years of association with Kollol of Jew Jersey, Ananada Mandir and other well known organizations. Your contribution to literature and work on arsenic cleaning in water is also well known.
In recognition of your dedication, we have the honor to award you the “Distinguished Service Award’ during the 28th North American Bengali Conference.

Pronoy Chatterjee is an ardent author, has written two novels (a review of one of his books appear in this blog) and has been an editor or several Bengali magazines including “Kallol Sahitya Sambad”, “AnandaLipi”, “Ananda Sangbad” and many others. He has that magical ability to inspire people around him to be creative, to develop their literary skills that have been dormant in them, and to enrich the lives of the community members through their creations.

My heartiest congratulations goes to Pronoy-da for this well deserved award.

Podcast: “Baad Protibad” A (Hilarious) Play in Bengali

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed


Last week I wrote about our new radio play “Baad Protibad” that was broadcast on EBC Radio 1170AM during the Sunday morning Bengali program “Probaho” conducted by Abhijit Sanyal. The play received quite a bit of positive feedback, and I thought that for the benefit of the people who could not listen to the radio that morning, I’d upload this play as a podcast. You can listen to this play by clicking the player above or download it into your iPod or similar digital players.

The credits are given below.

“Baad Protibad”
A Hilarious Play in Bengali by Sudipta Bhawmik

Produced by ECTA Inc.
Directed by Indranil Mukherjee
Cast:
Subhodev Das as Ashok
Aparajita Das as Kakoli
Indranil Mukherjee as Soumen
Anisha Das as Jhimli

Recorded and mixed at the Bharatiya Kala Kendra, NJ, Studio by Partha Sarathi Mukherjee
Edited by Partha Sarathi Mukherjee and Indranil Mukherjee
Music and effects by Partha Sarathi Mukherjee.
Song “Need some cash to fill up my gas” by Vikram Kumar

Please let me know how you liked the play. We may do more plays like this in the future.

ECTA Festival: Satyameva

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Scene from SatyamevaAfter receiving wide critical acclaim and audience appreciation in Kolkata, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, ECTA offers an encore presentation of “Satyameva”, a play by Sudipta Bhawmik.

Sanjoy, a young software professional, has arrived in the “land of opportunity” for just over six months and works for a software body shopping company “InterSoft” owned and operated by Bill (a Bengali American living in the States for over thirty years.) On the day of the play Bill fires Sanjoy and asks him to go back to India. Sanjoy, however, is not happy with this decision and refuses to oblige. He informs Bill that he is not going to return to India under any circumstances. He states that returning to India is synonymous to signing a death warrant for himself. He cannot subject himself to such a grave risk. And to justify himself, and to win his ultimate motive, he has to make a choice between truth or deceit.

ECTA (Ethnomedia Center for Theater Arts) presents this new Bengali play (with English SuperTitles) at the Edison Valley Playhouse, in Edison NJ on June 28, 2008 at 3.30pm.
Admission: $20.00

ECTA Mini Theater Festival: Satyameva, Ashomoy, Taconic Parkway

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After a long hiatus and constant requests from theater lovers, ECTA will be staging three plays on June 28th and 29th, 2008, at the Edison Valley Playhouse (EVP) in Edison, New Jersey.
On 28th June, Saturday, there will be an encore staging of “Satyameva” , a play by Sudipta Bhawmik, directed by Indranil Mukherjee; starring Sudipta Bhawmik and Pinaki Dutta.

On 29th June, Sunday, two plays will be staged. Theater Practitioners of Cleveland, OH will present an audio and video staging of “Ashomoy” a new play by Sudipta Bhawmik starring Saubhik Sengupta and Moushumi Sengupta.

This will be followed by “Taconic Parkway“, written and directed by Sudipta Bhawmik, starring Indranil Mukherjee, Keka Sirkar and Pinaki Dutta. This play will premiere at the California Natyamela on June 7th. Continue reading →

North America Bengali Conference (NABC) and the North American Bengali

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Undoubtedly, the North America Bengali Conference (NABC) or Bongosammelan, has become the key annual cultural event of the Bengalis not only belonging to the North America but also to the Bengalis all over the world. The amount of interest amongst the Bengalis back home in West Bengal is phenomenal. Artists of all genre’s (musicians, actors, writers) consider an invitation to perform at the NABC as a major achievement in their career. It was quite evident the other day when in one of the Bengali tele-serials/films, one of the characters (a musician) was expressing with pride about her recent invitation to perform at the Bongosammelan and highlighting the fact as a key measure of her success as a musician. Besides, any person who has been even loosely associated with any NABC organizing committee would know how they get deluged with requests from performers to get an invitation. However, the organizers of NABC are very careful and they place their bets only on the time tested popular artists with very few promising performers in the list. Continue reading →