By Amitava Sen

Why do we buy things?
Some for immediate consumption, like food, which we need for survival or mere delight of palate.
We buy theatre tickets, for enjoyment and entertainment.
Or, books and arts, to meet our intellectual needs.
We spend money on investment, with expectation for a return in cash or kind.
Also, for long term uses, like houses for shelter. The range of items like homes and cars are not always based on a minimum need; often times they exceed the rational limit. But their uses remain utilitarian nevertheless.
Amongst many others, clothing is an important area we spend our money on, so that we maintain a societal decorum and do not bare us to the world; and for sartorial splendor, of course.
Generally, we acquire thing to meet some kind of needs or perceived needs, material, physical or intellectual.
But there are a few items we get out of sheer obsession of the moments with complete disregard for need or return on investment and we make irrational judgment about the value of the acquisition. Consider for example, saree-buying frenzy of an India born women in our Bengalee community.
A mirror view is satisfying, but principally nice attire helps us look good in others’ eyes. At least that is a reasonable assumption. But observing some Bengalee women here, saree possession seems to have crossed the threshold of reasonableness; it looks like an uncontrollable mania. Continue reading →

Yet another Durga Puja festival concluded with great pomp and fan fare. And each year we see the festival transforming itself in different ways. Some people hate change. They feel that tradition is something that should be protected with great care. Others feel, nothing should be cast in stone – rules and traditions should be broken to herald in fresh views and thoughts. I am okay with either school of thought, although I tend to lean towards the latter philosophy. Organizing an event like Durga Puja is not a trivial task, and not all things work according to plan. Besides it is not easy to satisfy everybody.  However, I can speak about my experience and what I felt about the festival this year, especially the one celebrated by Kallol of New Jersey. Continue reading →

When we celebrate Durga Puja in this adopted homeland of ours, one thought keeps on playing in our minds – how much does our children enjoy this festival? Do they feel the same as we did when we were kids in our homeland? Many of us had the idea that our children really don’t care much about this favorite festival of ours. Often we have seen bored kids playing hand held video games in the hallways of our festival venue while their parents enjoyed inside. We sometimes debated, whether we are forcing our kids to come to the festival just because we want to, or it is our duty as a parent to introduce them to our culture and traditions? Is it working? Can they feel the spirit of the best festival of our community?
To get a more definitive answer, I asked my fourteen year old son Omkar and his friends a simple question. What does Durga Puja mean to them? And here are their responses. Continue reading →

It is said that you can take a Bengali out of Bengal, but you cannot take Bengal out of a Bengali. I’d rather rephrase it by saying that you can never take Durga Puja out of a Bengali. The greatest Bengali festival is once again knocking on our doors and the New Jersey Bengalis are gearing up to greet their Mother Durga with utmost fervor. Although according to the Bengali calender the puja starts (Maha Shasthi) on Sunday October 2, the enthusiastic New Jersey Bengalis are not willing to wait that long. ICC of Garden State will start their festival on Saturday 24th September and continue till Sunday the 25th. The Puja will be held at the Mt Olive High School, 18 Corey Rd, Flanders, NJ 07836. They have also lined up an impressive cultural program featuring the famous Bengali singer Nachiketa (more on Nachiketa later), a Bengali play from Toronto, and Soumen Adhikari, another singer from Kolkata. Several other local programs and great food also awaits the attendees. Note: I just learnt that ICC has canceled Nachiketa’s program due to lack of timely confirmation from the artist’s agent. Instead, they will be presenting Nirmalya Ray, a well known artist to the NJ music lovers. Continue reading →

On 13th of May 2001, when the entire state of West Bengal was experiencing the euphoria of change, the landscape of Bengali theatre also changed forever. Badal Sircar, the maverick of Indian theatre, passed away almost unnoticed. But I am not going to write an obituary of Badal Sircar, neither I am going to write his biography. Rather I’d like to share with you my experiences with this theater personality through his work and from few of my personal interactions with him.

My first experience with Badal Sircar was when I was a child. In our campus (I grew up in IIT Kharagpur campus) the faculty, staff and students often staged plays and I think it was with “Boro Pishima” I first experienced theatre and it changed my life in many ways forever. Later I saw “Solution X” where my mother also participated in one of the lead characters. Few years later, when I was in high school, I went to see a student’s production (TDS _- Technology Dramatic Society) and was shaken to the core to see “Michhil” performed. It was an experience that I could never have expected. For the first time I realized that theater does not require a stage, does not require any expensive sets, any lights or any sophisticated sounds. All it needs are performers and an audience. And in most cases, the barrier between a performer and audience faded away – they became one whole theatrical entity.  I also learned the term “Third Theatre”. The apparent simplicity of these production made me think, can theatre be so easy?  My friends and I started to produce Badal Sircar, “Michhil”, “Bhoma” and others. We even started performing regular proscenium kind of plays in third theatre form. Continue reading →