Why are there Tears in Bengali Eyes?

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By Amitava Sen

Have you noticed that the City of Joy has turned out to actually be a City of Billboards? The skyline as viewed from the roads is plastered with huge hoardings. If only they were placed somewhat lower, they could hide the squalor directly below. The displays for luxury apartments hang directly over the shack dwellings; advertisements for purified drinking water cast a shadow over the polluted cesspools that are the byproduct of cleaning and washing by the shanty dwellers. Then there are displays for fancy snacks and beverages, frowning directly on the people down below who live on less that one dollar a day. But the advertisers have a point in placing their billboards here, for they are not meant for the pedestrian hoi polloi, you can only view these displays from a distance if you are riding an automobile. In addition to the billboards, Calcutta has a tradition of roadside walls and building facades covered with paper posters, to be on the eye level of the passers by. The billboards are gaining in prominence as the car population in Calcutta is climbing exponentially every day. Continue reading →

Seeking a Bengali instructor for Fall 2011 – Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey

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The Department of African, Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Literatures at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey State (New Brunswick Campus) has an opening for a part-time Instructor of Bengali for 2011-2012 Academic year. Qualifications include: Native or near-native proficiency in Bengali, experience in teaching Bengali (preferably in a North American university) and competence in communicative, l earner-centered language pedagogy.

Please forward your CV, cover letter, and the names and contact information of three referees to Professor Alamin Mazrui, Department Chair, at amazrui@rci.rutgers.edu.

Click For Boi : Online Bangla Boi Subscription

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Click For BoiIf you are a book lover in Kolkata or any other part of West Bengal or India, your options for reading books are quite limited. The local books stores have a limited stock and they may take days to get you a copy of the book you are looking for. Your next option would be to go to the College Street book stores which is an uphill task during these hectic days and traffic congestion. Your local libraries can stock only a limited number of books constrained by their meager budget. ClickForBoi resolves all that problem by allowing you to get your favorite books online. Continue reading →

Watch “The Redemption”

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My play, “The Redemption” (the English version of “KaalSuddhi”) is now available for viewing on YouTube. This recording was done from our show at the Dixon Place in Manhattan during the 2005 New York International Fringe Festival.
Here is a small synopsis of the play:
This play is about Subimal who, once an active naxalite, had to flee his own country and come to America in search of a new life. Although Subimal did find a new life for himself, his past always haunted him, a past which he had always kept a deep secret. Suddenly, one day this secret starts to reveal itself to his son Somu from a long lost diary. Somu, a Harvard junior, is extremely curious to know the details of his father’s past, wants to know more about the Naxalite movement. But he never could have guessed the kind of murky and deep waters he is getting into. Subimal tried to prevent the inevitable, but his failure to do so ultimately leads him to his redemption.

Cast:
Sankar Ghoshal, Amitabh Roy, Mayuresh Khare, Keka Sircar

Anandabazar in Unicode

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Anandabazar Patrika is Bengali’s most favorite daily newspaper. However, until recently reading Anandabazaar Patrika online was severely restricted due the technology it used to render the Bangla fonts. Only Internet Explorer supported the technology, but that too crashed frequently. But recently Anandabazar is available in Unicode and can be enjoyed in any Unicode compliant browser. Just click on the following link:

http://anandabazar-unicode.appspot.com/proxy

Review in Parabaas.com

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If you are interested, you may read a review of my collection of plays (Natak Samagra) in Parabaas.com 47th issue. The link is given below.

http://parabaas.com/PB47/LEKHA/brRajat47.html

Please note  that your browser should be able to render dynamic font. Here is what Parabaas suggests if you cannot see Bangla fonts.

What you can do if the dynamic Bengali font is not rendered

1. If the URL shows as “http://parabaas.com/…”, try first by inserting a “www.” before “parabaas”–i.e. “http://www.parabaas.com/…”.

2. Download the itxbeng.ttf font and save it in the font directory of your computer. {To do that, (a) first download the font and save it, say, on the Desktop. (b) Click ‘Start’ -> ‘Control Panel’ -> ‘Fonts’ (c) “Drag and drop” (or “Copy and Paste”) the downloaded font from the “Desktop” (or wherever you have saved it) into the Fonts directory.)

3. From the Menubar in Microsoft Explorer choose ‘View’ -> ‘Encoding’ ->
‘User Defined’.

3a. If using Firefox browser, from the Menubar choose ‘View’ -> ‘Character Encoding’ -> one of the ‘Western (Windows)’ fonts displayed in the list.

4. On Netscape choose ‘Edit’ -> ‘Preferences’ -> ‘Appearence’ -> ‘Fonts’ ->
‘Use document specified fonts including dynamic fonts’.

5. Browsers older that Explorer 5.0 or Netscape 4.5 may not be able to
render dynamic fonts. Netscape 6.2 is also unable to render dynamic fonts.
If your browser is unable to render the Bengali font because of the above
reasons or due to a setting that intereferes with dynamic fonts, the easiest
remedy is to download the font ‘ItxBeng’ from this page and load it in your
computer.

The How and The Why – A New Play by Sarah Treem

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New York City has always  been the launch place for successful American plays. Plays by newcomer playwrights launch their life from off-off Broadway  and gradually filter to Off Broadway and then the lucky few goes to the Broadway. However, recent trends have shown that many new plays now premiere at Regional Theaters around the country and gradually make their way to the glitz and fame of Broadway if they get noticed. Recently, I had the opportunity of watching the premier of Sarah Treem’s new play “The How and the why” at the McCarter theater in Princeton New Jersey. The play was directed by Emily Mann and performed by Mercedes Ruehl (the Oscar winning actress) and Bess Rous. Continue reading →

Rabindranath Tagore and America

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Rabindranath TagoreThis year we are celebrating the hundred fiftieth birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore. In America several organizations are busy in preparing for the celebrations around the year. In New York and New Jersey, Cultural Association of Bengal (CAB) is joining hands with multiple organizations to hold multiple events in New York, New Jersey and Maryland. Amidst all this excitement, I was trying to look at this myriad minded genius from a different perspective – from the perspective of an expatriate Bengali, more specifically a Bengali American. And when I say Bengali American, I do not imply any national significance, rather I mean a Bengali speaking person living in America.  I have been looking into this subject for more than a year now, and during the course of my so called research I have been fascinated in knowing a great deal about the history of expatriate Indians in America and their relationship with Tagore.

Continue reading →