Goddess Saraswati was wearing a lehenga and there were residents of all age groups participating in the festivities. There was celebration in the air at CD Park over the Saraswati puja week as Bidhhannagar Aikya celebrated its 14th edition of the puja and Basanta Mela.
While the 15ft idol was installed at the pandal and inaugurated on February 10, four days ahead of the puja on February 14, the festivities too started the same weekend. On Sunday, a play adapted from the original version by Ramaprasad Banik was staged by residents of Labony Abasan.
Goddess Saraswati dressed in a lehenga being worshipped in a pandal modelled on a Rajasthan fort in CD Block
The cast of Mahavidya Primary ranged in age from five to 75-plus. “Our youngest member is five-year-old Radha Dutta, whose parents run a flower stall at our housing estate gate,” said director Sumit Sarkar, introducing the 22-member cast.
The play was a light-hearted drama with a social message centred around a slum of pickpockets and domestic helps. An NGO comes to set up a school for the slumchildren but a developer, eying the plot, bribes the police and gets some slum dwellers to bomb the school, killing a child. The play shows how the poor are manipulated by the rich and how slums are being razed making way for big apartment buildings these days.
The play had been staged at Labony during Durga puja. So when the invitation came for Saraswati puja, the production was ready. “The timing being the exam season, one of our young actors studying in Class XI could not take part. So we had to replace him with a teacher from among our neighbours. Everyone knew one’s lines. There was no prompter. We maintain the standards of group theatre,” said Sarkar.
Added Dhruba Bagchi, who played the character of Moni Gorgori, a policeman who was bribed by the developer: “The challenge was ensuring everyone showed up for rehearsals, and it wasn’t really easy. Everyone is busy in one’s professional field. But what helped us overcome challenges was our collective will and resolve,” he said.
Rehearsals took place for about two months. “That served also as a stressbuster and recreation for us. Amid our daily tension and setbacks, this was something that let us follow our heart,” Sarkar added. “I’m over 76 years and I still act. It’s passion that keeps me going,” smiled Shibani Bagchi, the seniormost member of the cast.
Members of the audience were appreciative. “The play was really good. It didn’t matter that they were not regular actors. We enjoyed it. It was great teamwork,” said Saikat Kumar Dutta, a resident of Laboni Abasan, who had come to watch neighbours in action.
The evening began with a poem being recited by Abhiraj Ganguly, a teenage resident of Labony who has acted in the 2018 film Haami, directed by Shiboprasad Mukherjee and Nandita Roy. “Abhiraj began doing stage performance when he was only three. He is fond of reciting poems. He had just a day to prepare himself for today’s programme but he did well,” said Ayan Ganguly, his father. The play was followed by three dance items by the women of Laboni Abasan.
The celebration was anchored by a week-long spring fete, inaugurated by local MLA and minister Sujit Bose, that featured stalls selling a variety of products, from food items to ethnic saris and dress materials made in Santiniketan. Garments were also distributed among the underprivileged living on the fringes of Salt Lake.
“Our puja had a Rajasthan theme this year, and the look was reflected in both the deity and the pandal, which was modeled on a fort. We did our best to bring people from all parts of Salt Lake. Our primary objective was to give Basanto Mela, a quintessentially Bengali festival, a national look and create bonhomie among all communities,” Tulsi Sinha Roy, councilor of Ward 40 and the president of Bidhannagar Aikya, told The Telegraph Salt Lake.
