Sujoy Prosad Chatterjee and team paid tribute to Suchitra Mitra and Kanika Bandyopadhyay on their birth centenary

Sujoy Prosad Chatterjee and his team from SPC Craft presented a soulful tribute to two doyens of Rabindrasangeet – Suchintra Mitra and Kanika Bandyopadhyay on their birth centenary. The event, Ananandadhara, took place on Dec 2.

The first half of the event saw Pramita Mullick delivering a lecture to mark the centenary year of Kanika Bandyopadhyay talking about the craft and philosophy of these two vocalists who were much ahead of their times. They did everything to popularise and practice the music of Rabindranath. They are the artistes from a time when Rabindrasangeet was pretty elitist. Meanwhile, the larger section of the audience was more into film music, and modern Bengali songs. On the radio, there were dedicated Rabindrasangeet segments. However, contemporary songs were popular. These two women contributed to making Rabindrtasageet popular to a larger audience. 

Then there was a performance by esraj player Subhayu Sen Majumder from Santiniketan. He inherited the legacy of Acharya Sailaja Ranjan Majumdar – Guru of Kanika Bandyopadhyay. Subhayu will play esraj. There was a section where SPC Craft members presented selected readings which are blended with music. 

The event also saw two dance performances by two eminent contemporary dancers Arnab Bandyopadhyay and Paramita Saha. While Arnab will perform with a song recorded by Kanika Bandyopadhyay, Paramita will present her version of Amar Mukti Aloy Aloye – recorded by Suchintra Mitra. “This is probably the first time Saha will present a contemporary dance piece in the second half. Her presentation will be with a song recorded by Suchitra Mitra,” informed Sujoy.  

There was reading from Suchitra Mitra’s autobiography and essays by Shyamali Acharya and Sujoy Prosad. This was accompanied by Rabindrasangeet by Jayati Chakraborty. The event was anchored by Suthirtha Bedajna.

“The idea of this event has been on my mind for a while. I am glad that we could felicitate the members of the family. It’s a great honour to be able to introduce these two legends to GenZ. Their lives revolved around the ethos of Rabindranath,” said Sujoy Prosad.