Monthly Archives: May 2008

Vijay Tendulkar : A Real Indian Playwright

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Vijay TendulkarI was deeply hurt to hear the news of the death of Vijay Tendulkar, one of the greatest playwrights of Indian theater. It was only last year, at the South Asian Theater festival, I had the opportunity of meeting Mr. Tendulkar. It was an experience that I will never forget. He was physically frail, but his will was as strong as any young man. It was this will and his love for theater that brought him over here, few thousand miles away from home, to see how are we doing our theater. During his speech at the opening ceremony, the way he protested against the non-issuance of visa to one of the participating teams demonstrated that the fire was still burning within him – the fire that led him to write the plays that changed Indian theater.
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A Mini Theater Festival

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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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Advantage Bengal: A Video on the IT Industry Opportunities in West Bengal

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Take a peek at this exciting promotional video “Advantage Bengal” produced by the Department of Information Technology, Govt. of West Bengal and Webel. Listen what the IT business leaders are saying about the IT opportunities in West Bengal as well as from the Chief-Minister Mr. Buddhadev Bhattacharya and IT Minister Dr. Debesh Das. Share this video with others who may be interested by using the “Share This” button on your right.

West Bengal on the Verge of an IT Revolution?

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Debesh DasThe Financial Express on its March 19 issue published an article which drew the attention of many high-tech entrepreneurs. It reported the laying of the foundation stone of a twenty story building that will house the India Design Center (IDC), a semiconductor chip design facility. West Bengal IT minister Debesh Das, who laid the foundation stone, said the facility will be set up according to a concept paper prepared by IIT Kharagpur and will offer semiconductor-related post graduate courses. It will also have space for semiconductor-driven companies and serve as an incubation centre for promoting entrepreneurs. Continue reading →

A New Translation of Tagore’s “Rakta Karabi” – The Red Oleanders

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Red Oleanders“Rakta Karabi” by Rabindranath Tagore has been considered by many pundits as one of the pillars of modern Bengali drama. The universal appeal of the play needed to transcend beyond the confines of the limited Bengali speaking populace and Tagore himself took upon the task of translating the play to English and gave it the title of “Red Oleanders”. Unfortunately, not too many productions of this wonderful play happened in the western world. One conjecture has been that Tagore’s language, in his translated works, failed to withstand the test of time as the English language evolved over the ages. Continue reading →

Hindustani Classical Vocal Concert by Pt. Ganapati Bhat

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Hindustani Classical Vocal Concert by Pt. Ganapati Bhat
Host: Gajanan Hegde / Anoop Bhargava
Location:
Gentry Club House
43 Franklin Drive, Plainsboro, NJ 08536 US
When:
Sunday, May 4, 3:00PM
Phone:
609-716-0202

Pandit Ganapati Bhat, is one of the leading lights of Hindustani Classical vocal music. Panditji is a “Gandabandha Shishya”, disciple of Pandit Basavaraj Rajguru, the maestro from Dharwad. Panditji’s gayaki is inspired by Gwalior and Patiala gharanas as well.
Panditji will be accompanied by Gopala Krishna on Tabla and Shreepad Hosmane on Harmonium. Please visit www.PtGanapatiBhat.com for additional details.
Minimum suggested donation is $ 15 per person. Tea, Coffee and Light snackswill be served during break.
Please forward this invitation to other classical music lovers as well.
Please RSVP at the earliest to help us plan the event.
ghegde@comcast.net

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 →