Asim Bando's KOLKATA BLOG

On 1 May, on the birthday of Manna Dey, an unusual musical programme will be held in the city Kolkata to pay homage to the late maestro. Manna Dey Foundation & Ashabari magazine will organise this function jointly. Eminent singers of Bengal like Usha Uthup, Nachiketa, Haimanti Shukla, Indrani Sen, Rupankar, Raghab, Manomoy, Shampa Kundu, Sudeb Dey, Pallab Ghosh, Sriradha Bandyopadhyay, Anik Dhar, Jojo, Saikat Mitra, Parimal Bhattacharjee, Sujoy Bhowmik, Ashok Bhattacharjee, Dipankar Chattopadhyay, Jyoti Prasad Chatterjee and Ashok Bhadra will participate on the occasion and sing the popular songs of Manna Dey. Compere : Mrinmoy Kanjilal & Madhumita Basu. Venue : Uttam Mancha, from 5:30 pm onwards. No entry fee.

Next 2nd May is the 94th birthday of Satyajit Ray. On this occasion, week long function would be organised from 1 May '15 - 7 May '15 at ICCR. Soumitra Chattopadhyay will inaugurate the function and he would deliver Satyajit Ray Memorial Speech. The previous orators are Javed Akhtar, Shyam Benegal, Naseeruddin Shah. This year, Chatterjee's subject of speech is: 'Satyajit & his actors'. The speech would be of half-n-hour duration. Chatterjee acted in 16 films of Ray - out of this, 14 feature film and 2 short film. He'll deliver the prestigious speech in Bengali. Some rare still photographs of Ray with Chatterjee would be exhibited there which were not produced earlier.             After the inaugural function, Soumitra Chattopadhyay will inaugurate 'Prabandha Sangraha' - the compilation of essays and articles written by Satyajit Ray for various books and magazines. More than 50 essays will be there. "Smaran" - the remembrance - a section d...

Yesterday, on the auspicious day of Poila Boishakh - the first day of Bengali New Year 1422, devotees rushed to Dakshineswar Kali Temple to offer pujas to goddess Kali. It is the pic of crowd gathered there in queue, peacefully. Pic source: Newspaper -- A. B.

-- A. B.

Today is Poila Boishakh - the 1st day of new Bengali calendar year 1422, when the devotees and traders went to Kali temple of Dakshineswar and Kalighat early in the morning to worship goddess Kali and lord Ganesha for the inception of new account of the new year to run their businesses smoothly. In the evening, the head of the households would go to the jewellery shops to clear their dues accompanied by childrens. The shop owner will welcome them with orange squash or lemon juice, along with sweets and snacks. The new printed Bengali calendar is the other main gift from the trader to the consumer, a matter of great curiosity for the whole family especially for the children, they eagerly wait to see who is the god/goddess printed on the calendar this year. Various cultural programmes are organised on this occasion by local clubs. Muhurat of new Bengali cinema and jatra was the traditional events of this day. 'Adda' was the additional attraction of Bengalee on Poila...

On the advent of summer, the familiar cart of making sugarcane juice is appearing on the streets of city. -- A. B.

Ghetu Puja is being observed today on Ghetu Sankranti in rural Bengal. It is a traditional festival of rural areas. In the morning and evening, kids come to every household with lantern, incense sticks and Ghetu flowers to sing the songs of Ghetu. They collect small amount of money from the household. It is the ritual of certain classes of rural people. Ghetu flowers are always bloom in the spring time mainly on the roadside and waste lands. It is a white flower with sweet scent and pink on the centre arranged in branched clusters. Hill Glory Bowed is the common name of this flower. It's botanical name is Clerodendrum Infortunatum. It belongs to the plant family Verbenaceae. This is native to our region. We all know it by the names Ghetu, Ghontakorno, Bhat and Bhaita. -- A. B.