Farooque, Aparna and Dhritiman at GD Birla Sabhagar. Picture by Aranya Sen

Shabana Azmi couldn’t make it, but that didn’t rob Storylines and Songscapes of its glamour. Shabana’s filmi friends Farooque Sheikh, Aparna Sen and Dhritiman Chaterji made up for her absence, enthralling the packed audience at GD Birla Sabhagar with their readings from Rabindranath Tagore on Friday evening.

Conceptualised and directed by the London-based film-maker Sangeeta Datta, Storylines and Songscapes revolved around the short stories of Tagore. Farooque, Dhritiman and Aparna read out English translations of three stories from the Galpaguchchha collection — Kabuliwalah, Postmaster and The End (Samapti).

“Galpaguchchha is very close to my heart. My copy is covered with an old newspaper. It sits on my book shelf and I keep going back to it,” said Dhritiman.

“I have read some Hindi, Gujarati and English translations of Tagore’s works. Tagore is someone you never outgrow. His works are always relevant,” said Farooque.

“Satyajit Ray offered me the role (in Samapti) two days after I first read the story. In the scene where Mrinmoyee realises that she is in love, he (Ray) asked me to bite my little finger and think of lovely wonderful things!” reminisced Aparna.

The reading was interspersed with music, video clips and a dance recital. Pramita Mallick, Sreya Guhathakurta and Sangeeta rendered the songs, while excerpts from Satyajit Ray’s Teen Kanya, Purnendu Pattrea’s Streer Patra, Tapan Sinha’s Kabuliwalah and Sangeeta’s The Wife’s Letter were screened.

“The idea was to celebrate Tagore’s short stories through readings, music and screenings of relevant films. I felt like revisiting the old stories that all of us have studied in school,” said Sangeeta.

The unknown Derozio

A poem or two in school texts, Utpal Dutt’s Jhor, his grave in Park Street cemetery — that is the closest Calcuttans today get to Henry Louis Vivian Derozio (1809-31).

Several scholars have written on Derozio and some efforts at compiling his works have been made in 1871 after Derozio’s death, in 1907 by BB Shah and even in 2001 by the Derozio Commemoration Committee. But none of these was complete or of expected printing standards.

On April 18, Derozio’s 199th birth anniversary, Rosinka Chaudhuri launched her Derozio, Poet of India: The Definitive Edition at Oxford Bookstore.

Present at the launch were scholars Amiya Dev, Swapan Chakraborty and writer Amit Chaudhuri among others.

The book claims to have within its covers all the poems of Derozio, plus his essays, notes, letters and reviews published in various periodicals.

An Oxford University alumnus and fellow at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Rosinka thought of the project while working at the India Office Library in London.

“I came upon some Derozio poems published in the Indian Gazette, which I had never seen before. These were not there in the two collections Derozio had published during his lifetime in 1827 and 1828, and neither in the later collections. I realised that much of Derozio remained out of bounds,” said Rosinka.

Apart from notes and a lengthy introduction, the book contains rare photographs of the young poet.

(Contributed by Malini Banerjee and Sebanti Sarkar)