The month of May in Bengal is dedicated to the celebration of the life and the works of Rabindranath Tagore and 2026 was no exception, despite the commotion and the clamour surrounding the assembly elections. Presented as a birth-month tribute to Tagore by Two Dots Entertainment and SPC Kraft in collaboration with others, and managed by Mehendi Chakraborty, a group of Calcuttans came together to perform a reading of The Farewell Letter (Radha Chakravarty’s translation of Tagore’s novel, Shesher Kobita) at Gyan Manch. Directed by Sohag Sen, the performance is best classified as an audio drama supported by lights, a suggestive set, and live background music.
Poulami Chattopadhyay and Sujoy Prasad Chatterjee as the two Storytellers set the performance rolling on a qualitative high, their crisp enunciation and pitch-perfect intonation falling satisfyingly on one’s ears. As the reading glided towards its conclusion, Chatterjee had a substantial chunk of text to perform, which he did with remarkable poise, meticulously eschewing melodramatic excess while teasing out the emotional content of the section.
Solanki Roy as Labanya had a dream role to perform, and it must be said that she quickly overcame her initial nerves to deliver the goods. Roy could convey with conviction the charming pragmatism which is the hallmark of Labanya’s character as envisaged by Tagore; an added advantage that Roy had was the naturally smooth texture of her voice. Subhayan Sengupta impressed the audience with his rendition of Amit Ray, taking ample care to highlight the character’s romanticism, his impatience with the mundane and his insistent leaning towards modernism. Anusha Viswanathan was the surprise package as Katy. Her reading conjured up a humanised version of the character that balanced out the ever-so-slightly caricature-like slant that Tagore had given her. Sohag Sen and Debopriyo Mukherjee were solid in their roles. The violin (Sandipan Ganguly) was disconcertingly loud at times, and the director might consider using more tunes composed by Tagore as the background score.