All the seats under the canopy were full on Ashtami night adjacent to the BK Block pandal as there were back-to-back contests underway. The lion at the Africa-themed pandal that alarmed or amused visitors, depending on their age and attitude, was given a break and the dancers from Sangam Performing Unit, Purulia, were relieved to get out of the costume on the humid night, and join the audience of the dhunuchi dance contest.
Such was the pull of the dhak beat that a lady from Barasat who had come pandal-hopping with her husband and son took a turn with the dhunuchi. After nine performances, cultural coordinator Chandrasekhar Bag announced Sampa Dey to be the winner, a decision that did not raise a single eyebrow. “I teach at my school Kinkini Dance Group. We sometimes do dhunuchi dance professionally also,” she said.
Tamashree Poddar and Tinku Acharya came second and third respectively. “Sampa and Tinku are the ones who choreograph all the dance items that our children perform at our block programmes. Tamashree is on a visit from Canada,” Bag said.
The conchshell-blowing contest ended much quicker. Soma Chakraborty was the undisputed winner, blowing the conchshell for 24 seconds without a break. There was a tie for the third spot between Anjana Dey and Mandira Mitra who clocked 17 seconds, a second behind Arpita Banerjee, who was declared the first runner-up. In the tie-breaker, Dey won the third place by clocking 21 seconds, ahead of Mitra’s 20.
“Though their timings on the second attempt were better than the second-place winner’s, we could not change the rank as it had been declared. So we have decided to give a prize to the loser in the tie-breaker too,” said Bag.
Prizes will be given away at the Vijaya Sammelani which will take place after Kali puja.