• Bidhannagar Chatrabas Trust, that provides accommodation to needy students pursuing higher studies, celebrated its 12th foundation day at their CK 9 hostel.
The event saw musical performances and speeches by trustees and members and the chief guest was minister Rabiranjan Chattopadhyay. Copies of Subhas Chandra Bose’s book Taruner Swapna were gifted to the students.
The trust helps students from villages, who have scored at least 80 per cent in Class XII, by providing them free boarding, food, books, clothes, transport and all other expenses while they pursue higher studies in Calcutta.
“We have 22 students living here now and the service runs purely on public donations,” said Surajit Ray, a trustee. “This hostel is the brainchild of the late Bimalendu Mustafi, who hailed from north Bengal and underwent a lot of difficulties in studying engineering in Calcutta. He then decided to start this centre.”
“The ambience here feels like home and everything is taken care of. My fellow students too are sincere and responsible,” said Sadhan Majumdar, a final year engineering student of Brainware Engineering College.
“I’ve got a lot of mental and financial support here. It gave me the opportunity to grow and aim higher,” said Kaushik Bera, who is completing his Ph.D at Indian Institute of Chemical Biology.
Jayita Chakraborty
Play time
• Township-based drama group Shruto Shonglap organised a two-day drama festival marking their 15th foundation day at Rabindra Okakura Bhavan.
The programme was inaugurated by councillor Minu Chakraborty and the chief guest was orator Satinath Mukherjee, who spoke about the evolution of audio drama over the years.
There were two skits on the first day — Taskar Kahini, written by Nirup Mitra and performed by Ashok Kumar Mitra and Jayanta Bhattacharya. The other, Ordhangini, was an Somerset Maugham work adapted for the stage by Utpal Jha. It was performed by Bula Ghosh, Shipra Mitra, Sutapa Das, Keya Ray, Geetali Chakraborty, Kalpalal Mazumder and Jayanta Bhattacharya. This skit also featured Satinath Mukherjee in a special role.
On the second day, there was a play, Gahan, inspired by an Agatha Christie thriller and adapted by Lopita Sarkar. “We perform all over the city, in various government and private halls. This was the first show of this production and we shall improve with every passing show,” said director Sutapa Das.
The audience had a good time watching the programme. “The members are my old friends and I love their performance,” smiled Bela Banerjee, a resident of Cluster 9, Purbachal.
Shreya Chatterjee
Coming up
• The 16th Salt Lake Theatre Festival will start this Sunday at Labanhrad Mancha in BD Block. The inaugural play will be Nandikar’s Rani Kadombini with Sohini Sengupta and Debshankar Haldar in the lead. The organisers themselves will stage two productions — Manasi and Abar Chapa Pora Manush — on Thursday. A highlight will be Saumitra Chatterjee taking the stage to play the lead role in Ghatak Biday, directed by his daughter Paulomi. The festival will conclude on December 17.
