A New Town neighbourhood and a school in Ajoynagar are celebrating Poila Baisakh online.

Sudipta Guha, 55, who lives in New Town's AB block will wear her favourite red ikkat sari and perform an audio play and recite Shankha Ghosh’s Jamunaboti before an audience of nearly 100.

Online rehearsals every evening for the past few days gave Guha and her neighbours something to look forward to during the lockdown.

“All of us have shifted here recently. We have been planning our first independent Bengali new year celebrations since January. So when the lockdown was announced, we were heartbroken,” said Anik Chowdhury, the secretary of the AB Block Owners’ Association.

But Chowdhury soon hit upon the idea of a virtual celebration. The programme would be held as planned, only it would be a Zoom meeting.

“Most members are senior citizens They are missing their walks and addas. They are not tech-savvy but I helped many of them download the app and guided them,” said Chowdhury, a software engineer.

Guha is definitely looking forward to Tuesday’s programme. “My son is in Mumbai and I worry for him all the time. I was getting depressed hearing the Covid-19 updates. I miss my walk, my gym too. I am looking forward to dressing up, performing and forgetting the reality for a while,” she said.

It’s not only the elderly who are excited. Kosturi Sarkar, 25, can’t wait to put on her make-up and dress up for the occasion. “It’s been a month since I dressed up. That itself is a high. I plan to present a dance and I am enjoying this sudden adrenaline rush,” she said.

Academic Somali Chakraborty has been taking virtual classes but on Tuesday she will go online for a different reason. “I am playing the synthesiser and am also part of a group performance. It is taking a lot of coordination,” the teacher at a south Calcutta college said.

A city school, too, has decided to go online with its Navavarsha celebrations. Seven teachers and four students of Indus Valley World School have got together to present a 20-minute cultural programme to mark the Bengali New Year.

All the performers have recorded their bits at home with Class XII student Rohosen Bhattacharya stringing them together.

One presentation is a dance staged by three teachers of the school. “We recorded our respective performances at home, keeping one movement common,” dance teacher Ritwika Ghosh said.

The director of the school, Amita Prasad, said the idea was to spread the message of hope and cheer. “The students keep asking me when school will reopen. We can sense their restlessness,,” she said.

The video was coordinated by the dean of arts, Priyadarshinee Guha, who also oversaw the narration.

“Editing the video took my mind off the stress. Our future is uncertain now and that is making us restless,” said Bhattacharya, who appeared for the Class XII CBSE exams this year.

The video link will be uploaded on the school app. There will also be Facebook watch party.