Asim Bando's KOLKATA BLOG

Mohun Bagan - the century-old football club of Kolkata is now the I-League Champion of 2014-15, so it is the joy of the city of joy, it is the joy of the millions of supporters of Mariners. Bagan last won the I-League 14 years ago. -- A. B.

Puja of Ma Sarada has been done on the day of Phalharini Kali Puja, last Sunday 17 May at Bagbazar Mayer Bari. -- A. B.

In the morning of 155th birthday of Rabindranath Tagore, a cultural programme was held at Jorasanko Thakur Bari as usual. Various artists rendered there Rabindra Sangeet and recitations from 6:30 am onwards. Here are pics of some of the artists performed there. 1) Arumoy Bandyopadhyay - recitation 2) Rajashree Bhattacharya - song 3) Durba Sinha Roychowdhury - song 4) Bijoylakshmi Barman - recitation 5) Mahua Mukhopadhyay - song 6) Utpal Kundu - recitation 7) Pubali Mukhopadhyay - song 8) Upali Chattopadhyay - song 9) Parvez Chowdhury (from Bangladesh)- recitation 10) Sanchayita Giri - song 11) Arpita Bandyopadhyay - song 12) Debprasad Roy - recitation 13) Abhirup Guha Thakurata - song

It is the traditional practice of rural Bengal to make small cakes by using cow-dung as an ancient source of fuel. The household elders use to live by drying cow-dung as small cakes on the wall. Later, these small cakes  would be sold as fuel.

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.