Anandadhara, the cultural club of DD Block, celebrated Rabindrajayanti at Upasana Griha recently.
“While organising Durga puja we discovered a number of hidden talents and once we announced Rabindra Jayanti, there was an overwhelming response from residents wanting to participate,” said Biswajit Chowdhury, a senior patron of Anandadhara.
The ladies of the block, who have their own club Mukto Bihanga, performed a vibrant group dance Rituranga. “After completing household errands and office work we rehearsed for about a month and gave it our best shot. We are not professionals but are enthusiastic about our performance,” said Aditi Chowdhuy, who wrote the script and was part of the elocution team.
Sixty-four-year-old Rama Poddar danced gracefully to 'Neel digante' despite technical glitches in the music player. An octogenarian, Maya Sarkar, recited from Tagore’s 'Puraton Bhritto'. Jahar Sanya recited 'Ami'. Seven-year-old Rishan Jana recited the poem 'Lukochuri' while five-year-old girls Writoja Saha and Shatakshi Biswas danced to 'Aji dhaner khete' and 'Mamo chitte'.
Ananyo Bhattacharya of Class VIII impressed with his song 'Tai tomar anando amar por' and Soudeep Sarkar, of the same class, played 'Alo amar alo' on the guitar. The mother-daughter duo Mayukhmala and Munmun Jana recited and sang from 'Bhanusingher Padaboli'.
The programme inside Upasana Griha created a lovely ambience as it reminded one of the Santinikatan Upasana Griha, that it is modeled on. The hall was beautifully decorated with floral rangoli by Samadhan Das and Snigdha Jana, and the event was anchored by Ronnie Biswas and Subir Dutta.
Krishna Biswas, 80, felt nostalgic to be at Upasana Griha as she is closely attached to Santinikatan. She read out a portion from her book 'Anubhabe Rabindranath' in which she described the characteristics of Tagore’s style of writing Bengali, which differed from that used by other authors of his time. Last but not the least was a drama based on Tagore’s short story 'Roger Chikitsha'.