Actor Rituparna Sengupta is on a mission. To mark the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore, she performed a dance ensemble on Tagore's verses with her troupe. Her aim: to take Tagore places and make people aware of the poet's works.
Katha Group, in association with Shomu Mitra, the programme designer and director, organised the musical extravaganza, Homage to Tagore, at Ravindra Natya Mandir, Prabhadevi. Sengupta asserts that this "wasn't a one-off event.Tagore is a very versatile, international figure in literary history. We wanted to pay homage to the master. I was always interested in doing something on Tagore. I had composed a lot of his dance dramas such as Chandalika, Shaap Mochon, Chitrangada earlier. But most people in Mumbai are not aware of these works. So we thought it would be a nice opening here".
Monsoon songs
The theme was monsoon and pieces performed reflected the season well. "Tagore wrote beautiful poems on the moosoons, there couldn't have been a better time to hold this event," she exclaims. The poet's verse translations were recited with sarod playing in the background.
Sengupta's dance troupe, Bhabna Aaj O Kal, performed an ensemble on Tagore's monsoon collection of songs, choreographed by the actor herself. True to the traditional style, her dance recital impressed everyone present.
Talk about Tagore's influence on cinema and she's quick to reply, "I'd love to do a film based on Tagore in Bollywood... a film like Chokher Bali. There's this Bengali film script on another Tagore novel called Jogajog that I'm considering at the moment. But it'd be great if I get an offer in B-town too. People need to know more about Tagore. I think his female characters are bold and contemporary."
The event witnessed Sengupta's husband, Sanjay Mukherjee, playing the sarod; tabla player Bickram Ghosh, anchor-singer-actress Madhumati Maitra; actor Srila Majumdar; dancer-actor Sudha Chandran and renowned Bangladeshi singer Shakila Zafar among others.
