Music and NABC go hand in hand together. Most of the events that happen at any NABC are related to music, and NABC 2010 is no exception either. A slew of musicians, like Abhijeet, Monomoy, Anik, Anwesha, Indrani Sen, Sahaj Ma, Utpal Fakir and many others will be performing at the 2010 NABC at the Atlantic City Convention center. Each performer will enchant the audiences with their solo performances on the grand stages of the convention center. However, this year the host organization Kallol of New Jersey is planning something special with these popular and talented musicians. Named as “Surer Ei Jhar Jhar Jharna”, this program will bring on stage all the musicians together to perform some of the most popular songs over the last fifty years of Bengali music. Starting with the haunting melodies of the sixties to the band music of the contemporary Bengali youth, the program will take its audience through an audio-visual journey that has never been experienced before. Continue reading →

I wrote the play “Musical Chair” couple of years ago for a local magazine. That time I had no intention of staging the play, rather it was written more as a piece to be read rather than acted. The theatrical format did consider the staging related logistics, but the play demanded a lot from the actors and the director. Keka Sircar took up the challenge and we decided to stage the play along with “Ekti Gnaye Thaki”.  A women director can bring to a play a perspective that is unique and for a play like “Musical Chair” it is almost essential.  Since all the speaking characters in this play are women,  the actors too can present the material in a form that we are not accustomed to in a male dominated stage. The way the play gets interpreted and presented by the women actors can never be achieved from a male perspective.

Continue reading →