Benjamin Franklin once said: ‘Out of adversity comes opportunity.’ Likewise, the recent pandemic has opened new avenues as the world quickly adapted to online mode. And now music lessons go online with village Kirtaniyas imparting khol lessons to students abroad. Yes, Bengal’s khol goes to
The term Dokra (or Dhokra) comes from the Dokra Damar tribe, an extensive ethnic community now spread all across India. This tribe produces the traditional metalsmiths of West Bengal and Odisha, who have given Dokra artefacts their name, and their technique of lost wax casting
Rural cooking videos have picked up in recent years and the familiar frame of frail, aged women seated in their mud-plastered courtyards or farm fields with traditional earthen cookwares, Shil-nora or Sil-batta (grinding stone) and mortar and pestle, ready at hand and cooking up a
When it comes to authorship, folk songs can be hard to pin down. Many of our most popular folk songs have been around for what could be centuries, with their original creators remaining forever unknown. Such as the song ‘Bare bare ar asa hobe na
Spurious or artificial ghee can kill. We start with the bad news so that we can give you the good news later. And so that you know that the ghee you're buying from the market may actually be poisoning you. The principal reason for this
Nobody who has read Michael Madhusudan Dutt’s Bengali works without knowing his background can imagine how reluctantly he took to the language he had once professed to hate. But then, the man we know as one of the most original practitioners of Bengali literature was
Tujhse naraaz nahin Zindagi… that heartwarming music of yesteryears floating through some non-descript local para of Kolkata. From the strings of a violin, played by an old man in semi-tattered boots. Not a Beethoven’s symphony, nor a Van Gogh painting… he is Bhagaban Mali, the
"It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself….” That’s what renowned German composer and musician Johann Sebastian Bach had once said. True to what Bach said,
Mithun Chakraborty turned 71 on June 17, 2021. The political controversies surrounding him notwithstanding, he has never been a politically inclined person, never mind his vacillating shift from one political party to another. Instead, in celebration of his attaining 71 summers, one needs to focus
His stories and movies were all about layered drama that weaved a magic and madness lifting them to the podium of world cinema. The only Indian director to get a Lifetime Achievement Oscar, Satyajit Ray, is still superbly relevant even on the online platform. Else