Mahanavami Sandhyarati And Dhak

My Experience, Identity and Award

Experience:

What I have found the best quality in my colony members, especially in my co-actors is…they did not misunderstood my introvert nature as my self-conceit, as I have mentioned in my earlier post My Blood Cancer, Wife, Teacher and "The Journey"  that I am living in this colony from past five years but no interactions happened with any of the colony members except my next door neighbors, so in this social status when I expressed my interest to take part in the drama which has been organized as an event for Durga Puja, they accepted me gladly and their behaviors made me surprised….from the beginning they all are very friendly, helpful nature and interacting me as I am their old friend, this is really an unforgettable experience of my life, they are educated, matured and capable enough to understand the nature of a human being.

In last four years I have rarely visited the puja mandap but this year not only I have got interest to spend time there for their friendly behavior rather when I am absent they are calling me to be present there.

So this year’s Durga Puja is gonaa very much different than earlier four years, today is the day of Saptami and now it’s over, still three days remained and lots of cultural programs gonna take place.

Here are some glimpses of “Dola aante jawa”

Identity:

 I have got a new identity in this colony…my co-actors has remembered me as Madhu (the name of the character I have played), as they have become familiar with my name very recent(during rehearsal) so most of them have forgot my name, on the other hand they were seeing me as Madhu during rehearsal so they have remembered me as Madhu, some interesting incidents related to this is…10the sept was the date for our first full rehearsal from 8PM, that day morning I had to call some of my co-actors for some queries, when they picked up my call and I said

…Its Jyotirmoy

The reply was

…sorry, who is this, I can’t recognize

Then I said

…its Madhu

And the reply was with glad voice

…Hey Madhu,whats up?

This is how the conversation started when I called three others.

Awards:

The drama about which I have shared in my earlier post has taken place during the day of Sasthi(Durga Puja) and the best award I have received is…not only the co-actors now other colony members are also calling me as Madhu and most importantly the children of my colony has started to call me “Madhu Dada” or “Madhu Uncle”…there can be no best awards than this when you play a role and capable enough to leave a deep impact in the viewers.

Here are some pictures when we gathered in the stage before the play after the make up…

from the left...Asomoy (A Mad),    Madhu(The protagonist),    Bijon (The Main Villain),   Sujon(The Hero),   Teja(Right Hand of Bijon, a goon),   Rakesh (Assistant of Bijon)

I am busy in Durga Puja so it will not be possible to read your posts everyday coz I have to take some responsibilities here regarding the cultural programs but it also truth that I am feeling very uneasy as its not being possible to read your posts because I am addicted to your writings my dear bloggers, each day of my life starts with your writing, photography and other posts.

My Blood Cancer, Wife, Teacher and "The Journey"

Some unexpected incidents are happening in my life; all these happened so suddenly that when I figured out…everything came to an end…

1) I have got married, yes, it has happened all on a sudden, there was no planning for it, actually what happened is…

My bosom friend Gaurav’s sister Sokhi is in love with Sujan from last few years, the date of their marriage has been fixed…in the day of marriage when we all were waiting for the groom then almost at the last moment we came to know that groom is not coming, it is a common notion in India that if a girl doesn’t get married at the fixed moment in the day of marriage then she is considered as “Lagnabhrasta” and nobody wants to get married with her. So Sokhi and all her family member were very upset, they became hopeless, Sokhi attempted suicide also. I was there, attended the marriage, seeing the situation being critical I asked Gaurav’s parents that if they wish then I can marry Sokhi….this is how the marriage happened.

Here I must inform you that Sokhi’s beloved Sujan is not a bad guy or a cheater, the entire game was planned by his elder brother Bijon, who is the head of the Panchayet and a satanic minded person; he has lots of illegal business like false currency press, smuggling etc.  when he came to know about the relationship between Sujan and Sokhi he did not make any protest rather agreed for their marriage but at the end he played a nice trick and sent Sujan abroad just before few days of marriage.

2) Another incident that has happened in my life is….

 I am suffering from blood cancer, few days left in my life.

3) Not only these two rather there happened one more interesting incident in my life…

It’s been long five years we have shifted in our own house in this colony, in last five years a good relationship has built up only with the two next door elder brother except this I have never talked or any interaction has happened with any other colony members, this is my social status in this colony, though my family members are involved in many social and cultural activities with the colony members but I never did, so it happened almost two months ago when I first time talked with a middle aged person...the conversation started like this….i addressed him as …”you son of a bitch” and then continued expressing my anger.

4) During my childhood days I used to think seeing my teachers and elder ones…how do they spend evening time with friends? What type of discussions they like to do? Their appearances must be different when they are with their friends…I was very eager to know all these and now I have got the answers.

By the way, have you ever seen that the teachers, engineers and other such workers are remembering the notes just like we used to remember history and geography…holding the notes and the books we used to remember the answers of questions of different subjects repeating the sentences and sometime moving our body front and back side with a rhythm…I have experienced all these and can show you.

I think this post is being too much dramatic…you also feeling the same…I know.

Ok, let me confess…the upper mentioned three incidents are not the truths except point 4 and my introvert nature I have described in the point 3. 

Actually what happened is…in the month of August when my dad attended the meeting in the colony for Durga Puja purpose then after returning back home he informed that a Jatra has been arranged by the colony members and will be staged in the day of Sasthi(26^th Sept), the characters will be played by the colony members, so my dad and mom asked me to take part.

I informed one of the colony members about my interest and attended the rehearsal in the second day, the director decided the characters those will suit with age, looks and appearance (as much as possible), I received the Xerox copy of my dialogues, the name of the character I am playing is…Madhu, a 29 years old boy, gentle, helpful and have immense protesting nature.

Bijon(Played by an engineer of my colony) is the main villain…my first scene starts with Bijon when I am protesting his nasty activity and the dialogue starts with…”you son of a bitch”.

The character of Sujan is played by a Bengali teacher from my colony.

Sokhi and other two female characters have been hired, they are professional theater actresses.

An established businessman will play the role of Gaurav, sokhi’s elder brother.

The role of Sokhi, Sourav and Gourav’s father will be played by one of the most popular and famous theater actors of Bengal, presently an inhabitant of our colony and a retired person; he was an officer of Food Corporation of India (Next post will be about him).

There are total fourteen male characters in this drama and all will be played by our colony members including me. We all are armature but except me everyone has the experience of acting in theater.

The toughest part is…the girl who will play the role of Sokhi is one of the top actresses and has five years of acting experience as a professional artist, this one has also a positive side…if by chance any of us make any mistake in taking position in the stage in any scene then they will make it correct without disturbing the scene.

Yesterday was our last day of rehearsal, a sixty days (almost) of journey has ended yesterday.

I am blessed enough for performing under the guidance of such a great actor cum director,have learnt lots of things about and related to acting.

Here are some pictures of our rehearsal….

(Pictures are not very clear coz these have been taken from video)

With Our Director

 

Teachers and Engineers remembering their notes....i mean the dialogues

 

Main Villain Upon The rostrum 

Warning the villain and His chamcha

About to hit another villain

My Marriage Scene, holding the hand of my would be wife(professional actor as proxy)

Waiting to enter

Exam is knocking at the door, have to remember the answers

 

Sujan madly searching Sokhi

In Death bed

I am Dead

So this was "The Journey"....Jatra 

To read about Jatra...The Journey you can click the given link

Jatra---The Journey 

Jatra...The Journey

Today what I am going to share can rarely be seen now-a-days…

“Jatra”…do you know what it is, I know you all are acquainted with this but with different names…like Nautanki in Uttar Pradesh, Tamasha in Maharashtra and Bhavai in Gujrat, though there are slight differences with all these with the so called Bengali Jatra.

In Bengali “Jatra’ means the journey, literally it means…when you are moving from one place to another then it’s called Jatra, with the same thought the Bengali folk theaters are called Jatra because when television and mobile were beyond the imagination of human being those days Jatra used to play an important role for the entertainment and the journey used to start from the month of September and used to end before the beginning of monsoon, the troops used to visit different places…villages and towns and used to perform the jatra.

Origin

The most interesting fact about the origin of Jatra is…it was traditionally created during lord Chaitanya’s Bhakti movement, where Chaitnya Dev used the play the role of Rukmini(the wife of Lord Krishna).

Though Jatra originated with different religious movements but later it has left a deep impact and performed to spread social, ethical and moral awareness, it always contains some good messages for the society.

Jatra usually performed openly in a stage made with bamboos and curtains and with musical concert. Generally Jatra Pala use to start from night and ends in the midnight or dawn.

With time lots of changes has happened with the stage and with the content.

Earlier days Jatra used to be performed only by the male members, they used to play both the male characters and the female characters with proper get ups.

When we talk about theater and don’t mention Binodini Dasi…that will be not fair.

Binodini Dasi widely popular as Noti Binodini…she started her carrier under the guidance of famous theater director GirishChandra Ghosh, who was also a poet, novelist, actor, play writer and musician.

Noti Binodini performed more than in eighty roles in her twelve years of carrier, she had mastery in acting, there is a real incident that explains her hold in acting that took place in famous Star Theater in Kolkata…she was playing the role of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and in the audience there was Ramkrishna Paramhansa Dev…she performed the role so fantastically that seeing her acting Ramkrsihna went into trans.

Noti Binodini is the perfect example which explains that acting can take you to how much height…she came into theater from brothel house yet by acting she achieved everyone’s’ respect, later not only did she study but also wrote few books.

The difference between theater and Drama is…

You have to deliver dialogue almost four times higher voice than drama and the acting should be too much expressive.

It is said that….it’s much easier to act in movies than to act in Jatra….because there is no chance of re-take, you have to perform in one chance, this is the reason thespian actors are more welcome in cinema world.

There is also a common thought that…the Jatra of Bengal is good to listen and the Jatra of Odissa is good to watch…it does not mean at all that the actors of Odissa are not good or the stages in West benagl are not well designed…actually it is said because the Jatra Pala in West Bengal is performed in a single stage where as the Jatra Pala in Odissa is performed in different stages.

Here are some notable Bengali theater actor

Girish Chandra Ghosh

Sombhu Mitra

Manoj Mitra

Ritwik Ghatak...an well know Film Director also.

Utpal Dutta...an well known film actor. 

Soumitra Chatterjee...Bengali actor, Dad Saheb Phalke award winner.

here i am sharing two video so that you can relate more deeply with Bengali Jatra...