NY/NJ Bengali

West Bengal on the Verge of an IT Revolution?

The Financial Express on its March 19 issue published an article which drew the attention of many high-tech entrepreneurs. It reported the laying of the foundation stone of a twenty story building that will house the India Design Center (IDC), a semiconductor chip design facility. West Bengal IT minister Debesh Das, who laid the foundation stone, said the facility will be set up according to a concept paper prepared by IIT Kharagpur and will offer semiconductor-related post graduate courses. It will also have space for semiconductor-driven companies and serve as an incubation centre for promoting entrepreneurs. Continue reading West Bengal on the Verge of an IT Revolution?…

A New Translation of Tagore’s “Rakta Karabi” - The Red Oleanders

“Rakta Karabi” by Rabindranath Tagore has been considered by many pundits as one of the pillars of modern Bengali drama. The universal appeal of the play needed to transcend beyond the confines of the limited Bengali speaking populace and Tagore himself took upon the task of translating the play to English and gave it the title of “Red Oleanders”. Unfortunately, not too many productions of this wonderful play happened in the western world. One conjecture has been that Tagore’s language, in his translated works, failed to withstand the test of time as the English language evolved over the ages. Continue reading A New Translation of Tagore’s “Rakta Karabi” - The Red Oleanders…

North America Bengali Conference (NABC) and the North American Bengali

Undoubtedly, the North America Bengali Conference (NABC) or Bongosammelan, has become the key annual cultural event of the Bengalis not only belonging to the North America but also to the Bengalis all over the world. The amount of interest amongst the Bengalis back home in West Bengal is phenomenal. Artists of all genre’s (musicians, actors, writers) consider an invitation to perform at the NABC as a major achievement in their career. It was quite evident the other day when in one of the Bengali tele-serials/films, one of the characters (a musician) was expressing with pride about her recent invitation to perform at the Bongosammelan and highlighting the fact as a key measure of her success as a musician. Besides, any person who has been even loosely associated with any NABC organizing committee would know how they get deluged with requests from performers to get an invitation. However, the organizers of NABC are very careful and they place their bets only on the time tested popular artists with very few promising performers in the list. Continue reading North America Bengali Conference (NABC) and the North American Bengali…

Some Upcoming Shows of ECTA

I’d like to notify some of ECTA’s (Ethnomedia Center for Theater Arts) upcoming shows.

Those of you who have missed our play “Satyameva” at the Edison Valley Playhouse, you may catch the show on April 26th 5.30pm at the Gwyn-Nor Elementary School, 139 Hancock Road, North Wales, PA 19454 . The show is hosted by Pragati of Greater Philadelphia.

ECTA has been invited to participate at the California Bay Area Natyamela to be held on June 7th at the Amador Theater, Pleasanton, California. ECTA will be staging their latest production, a one act play titled “Taconic Parkway”, at this venue. The play is written and directed by Sudipta Bhawmik and the cast includes Pinaki Dutta, Indranil Mukherjee and Keka Sirkar. Please inform your friends and family in the area to attend the festival and watch our play.

Actors Needed

ECTA (Ethnomedia Center for Theater Arts) is looking for two actors for their upcoming theater production (”Baanaprastha” written by Sudipta Bhawmik and directed by Indranil Mukherjee) to be staged in fall 2008. A brief description of the characters are given below. Interested person may please contact by email to either indymukh@gmail.com or bhawmik@gmail.com. Actors may be called for a brief audition.

Character A: Bengali speaking male, mid to late twenties, tall and thin built.

Character B: Bengali speaking female, late teen - early twenties.

Actors must be committed to the rehearsal schedule and all stage productions of the show and should posses the passion to act.
Please note that this is a voluntary service and ECTA will not compensate the actors or the crew either financially or by any other means.

A Brief Note on ECTA:

ECTA (Ethnomedia Center for Theater Arts) Inc. is a not-for profit community theater company dedicated to produce and stage quality theater. ECTA’s past productions include, “Phera”, “Alibaba”, “Kalsudhhi”, “The Redemption”, “Durghatana”, “Ron” and “Satyameva”. ECTA has staged plays all across USA and also in India. ECTA’s mission is “to tell our own stories through theater.”

Cultural Association of Bengal (CAB)

Recently, the members of the esteemed organization Cultural Association of Bengal (CAB) has been flooded with letters, emails and phone calls regarding the upcoming election of its executive committee members. CAB is one of the oldest Bengali Associations in USA and its primary contribution to all of us Bengalis living in North America (as well as those in other countries including India and Bangladesh) is the annual North America Bengali Conference (NABC) held every year in one of the major cities of USA or Canada. Although the conference each year is hosted by a local organization who work quite autonomously, CAB own the franchise rights and maintains some degree of control over the proceedings. This activity alone has given CAB a national (as well as international) visibility that brings with it some greater opportunities as well as responsibilities. Continue reading Cultural Association of Bengal (CAB)…

Moglai Porota

Moglai Porota (or maybe Mughlai Parantha) is one of the most sublime Bengali comfort foods that I know of. I don’t know if the Mughals ever ate this tasty flaky fried dough interleaved with eggs, onions, green chilli and minced meat (keema). Whatever may be the source of this food, it has become a Bengali favorite of all times. I don’t recall I have seen Moglai Porota in a menu of any restaurant outside Bengal (except the Bengali ones of course). Hence I am going to call it Mogali Porota, just the way Bengali’s love to call it. Several restaurants (and hotels as we prefer to call these eateries in India) have earned their name to fame by serving their world famous Mogali Porotas to their clientèle. Anadi Cabin, Das cabin and many other names come to my mind. But not too many though, since making a good Moglai Porota is no easy task for any chef. Crafting the thin crepe from a heavily leavened flour dough requires a skill that can be mastered by very few. I have heard many tales of tricks and techniques used by the great Moglai chefs - some tossed the dough in air (like they do for pizza or rumali roti) twirling it in the air and allowing the centrifugal force to thin the dough out. Some thrashed the dough against a well oiled flat piece of granite or marble till the dough becomes thin, almost semi transparent. Some have used the simple roller pin with such dexterity that the dough flattened out like a thin paper in no time. Continue reading Moglai Porota…

A Living Memory : A New Novel by Pronoy Chatterjee

From amongst a small but distinguished crowd of novelists of Indian origin in this country, Pronoy Chatterjee may not be a name that stands out in the public eye. The more famous authors like Jhumpa Lahiri, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Amitav Ghosh and others have enjoyed the limelight more than some of the less famous writers like Pronoy who write for the love of writing, who write to express their deepest feelings for humanity - in the little time they can extract out from the busy daily life of a well renowned professional. But, it is the authors like Pronoy, who can sometimes tell us the tales that we have lived though all our lives, the tales that bring back memories of a past that we long for, bring in hopes for a future that we all dream about.
“A Living Memory” is Pronoy’s second novel (published by Author House) where he tries to “capture the complexities of desire and conflict in a small village in colonial India”.
I have not read the book as yet, but the story line (given below) has attracted me enough to get a copy for myself to read. Continue reading A Living Memory : A New Novel by Pronoy Chatterjee…

Why Go to the Theater?

Theater is one of the oldest forms of performing art. From the stone ages, men and women have been telling stories by enacting them when even no language existed. Ancient Greek theater still inspires us and they continue to be staged in all languages of the world. The ancient Hindu scriptures regard the text of the theory of performing arts (Natya Shashtra) as the fifth Veda (Pancham Veda). And just like the Greek theater, ancient Indian Sanskrit theater were also highly developed. Continue reading Why Go to the Theater?…

Satyameva: A New Play by ECTA

“Satyameva Jayate” - a phrase from the Mundaka Upanishad is the national motto of India and all Indians. Literally it means, “truth alone prevails” - implying that truth is all that we should strive for, since truth only can lead us to success and happiness. But often this hypothesis has been proven wrong. Through bitter life experiences we all discover that “truth” hardly leads us anywhere - it is the “untruth”, the “false” and “deceit” that we need to master in order to attain our goals and objectives. Or is it that our goals and objectives need to be re-examined? Are we chasing the right goals? Goals for which we do not have to rely on the “false” - goals that can truly be achieved by truth alone? Or is it that “truth” is nothing but an illusion, a “fake” notion that we like to believe to be “true”?
“Satyameva”, tries to explore this age old question in a setting in North America where the immigrant Indian population tries to deal with this issue in their everyday lives. Continue reading Satyameva: A New Play by ECTA…