Asim Bando's KOLKATA BLOG

The traditional puppet play of rural Bengal is still the main attraction of Raas Bari of Mahendra Bhattacharya Road in Howrah. In the year 1897 Priyanath Ghosh Bagui had established Radha-Krishna temple. Since then a century-old puppet play organisation of south 24-Parganas comes to this Raas Mela and various dramatic plays (যাত্রাপালা) are use to perform here through puppets in the evening for four days. The pair of idols of Radha-Krishna made of Kashti Pathar (কষ্টিপাথর) are there inside the temple. From the day of Raas the idols of Radha-Krishna are being kept on the Raas manch (রাস-মঞ্চ) for the next four days. Each day in the evening, when the puppet play ends, the idols use to bring back in the Naat-mandir (নাটমন্দির) for evening prayers and finally use to lay in the main temple for the night. Decoration with puppets in the Naat-mandir is one of the important and attractive part of Raas here. The 10 Avatars of Sri Krishna are being showed outside the Naa...