ECTA’s latest production “Banaprastha” premiered at the Edison Valley Playhouse on May 16th in front of a full house. The play was very well received by the audience as you can see in the accompanying video. The second show was held on May 17th. Besides the video comments, here are some of the comments sent over the email.
“We thoroughly enjoyed Banaprasta. This is a very timely production. I wish this drama can be viewed by millions Indians in India in view of the fact that India is crazy about Bollywood. Once again congratulations for presenting a great drama.” – Aurobindo Mukherjee
“I saw your play yesterday and I must say it was outstanding. The theme was very contemporary and acting was great! Looking forward to many more!!” – Gargi Gupta
“I want to encourage everyone to see the play Banaprastha. Mary and I saw it yesterday, and we both loved it. The play, entitled “Banaprastha,” is about an Indian-born physician who spends is professional career in Manhattan and retires to his childhood home in India. It is performed in Bengali and English, with English subtitles. The acting and story was superb, and the cast comprised several actor’s from the Jumpha Lahiri movie “The Namesake.” If you go, I’m sure that you’ll enjoy it as much as we did.” – Jason Paul DeMont
“I especially liked the topic that was addressed. I am one of those that believe if your spouse at old age is no longer by your side for whatever reason, one should find another companion. Perhaps my work leads me to believe that, I work with the Geriatric society in this country. Of course the crazy lifestyle which is imitated not really realized by Indians in India will cause a generation to suffer enormously. Globilization is fantastic but it does have its repercussion to the ones that are not mature.” – Sashwati Chatterjee
Bengali Webzine Urhalpool Released
After the smashing success of the first edition, the 2nd edition of online bilingual (Bengali & English) magazine URHALPOOL (www.urhalpool.com) is out. The 2nd edition is even bigger, better and has contents covering more variety. Following are the highlights –
– Urhalpool Reader Ruchira Mondal’s short story & Indranil Bakshi’s poem
– Series novel from Sunil Gangopadhyay
– Series poetry-novel from Tasleema Nasreen
– Collection of short stories including a translated one from 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner Juno Diaz
– Interview from India’s most successful cricket captain Sourav “dada” Ganguly
– Special section on Feluda with interviews from Sandip Ray, Soumitra Chatterjee,Sabyasachi Chakroborty and a full script of unpublished one-act play on Felu-da
– Interviews from film-star Prosenjit and multi-percussionist Bickram Ghosh (member of the Grammy award winning team for the album “Full Circle”)
– Special write-up from Nabaneeta Deb Sen, Sarat Kumar Mukhopadhyay, Sunil Gangopadhyay
– Poetry from Nobel Laureate Roald Hoffman
– Remaining part of the interview of Prof. Noam Chomsky
– Poetry from Carolyn Forché, Yousef Komunyakaa
– Goutam Ghoshe’s multimedia interview introducing his latest movie “KaalBela”
..and many more
Also for the literary minded in Kolkata and vicinity URHALPOOL printed version is available in circulation, printed and marketed by “Punoscho Prokashoni”, Kolkata