Tripura chief minister Manik Sarkar felicitates Sunil Gangopadhaya. Picture by Parthajit Dutta

Tripura University vice-chancellor Arunoday Saha set the tone for the two-day Agartala-Kolkata festival when he invited renowned poet and Sahitya Akademi chairman Sunil Gangopadhyaya to “take classes on Bengali literature in our university”.

The festival’s chief guest assured the vice-chancellor that he would love to take classes but after the Calcutta Book Fair next year, as the packed-auditorium at the Rabindra Shata Varshiki Bhawan here reverberated with applause.

The festival was jointly conceived by the Tripura Artistes’ Association (TAA) and the Calcutta-based Bangla Samskriti Parishad.

“This (the festival) is an attempt to strengthen the cultural bond between Tripura and West Bengal. So we decided to bring together artistes from both the states,” said TAA secretary Pushpita Chakraborty.

During the past few years, the festival has not evoked the desired response from the audience except in competitive drama, music and dance competitions involving students. This time, however, the auditorium was packed.

Writers, poets and artistes attended the festival, which boasted of renowned personalities from the fields of literature and music from both the states. Before the artistes took the dais, the organisers felicitated Sunil Gangopadhyay and Tripura’s storywriter Sujay Roy with lifetime achievement award.

In the arena of music, Mihir Singhdeo, a veteran jhumur specialist from Calcutta, and Tripura’s veteran vocalist Manik Chakraborty were felicitated.

The programme was enlivened by the folk songs of Raja Hasan, a singer from Tripura. Srikanta Acharya then enthralled the audience. Rabindrasangeet by Esha Mitra was the evening’s treat.