Eight decades on, Bengalis continue to tune in to ‘Birendra Krishna Bhadra’ for Durga Pujo

Mahishasura Mardini, the famous 90-minute musical piece was first composed in 1931 under the direction of Pankaj Kumar Mullick. It was only recorded in 1966, after which the recorded version was played everywhere, writes Arnab Mitra on the Indian Express. Read on: 

It’s that time of the year, yet again, to welcome Ma Durga; when the heart-piercing and oh-so-familiar strains of ‘Mahishasura Mardini’ will emanate from every Bengali house across India and, possibly, the world. Eight decades after it was first recorded, there is still no comparison with the sonorous voice of Birendra Krishna Bhadra that still rules the heart of every Bengali. But who is this man whose reverberating voice even the great Uttam Kumar could not replace?

In 1905, Bhadra was born Ahiritola, North Kolkata to Kali Krishna Bhadra, a well-known linguist, who had been awarded the title ‘Roy Bahadur’ in the year 1927, and Sarala Bala Devi, daughter of the then police court lawyer Kalicharan Ghosh.

After graduating from Scottish Church College in 1928, Bhadra joined All India Radio, Kolkata, and became the lead vocal of Pankaj Kumar Mallik’s ‘Mahishasura Mardini’. Apart from a legendary radio voice, Bhadra was an amazing play writer and director, whose oeuvre includes ‘Mess No. 49’ and directed a theater production ‘Saheb Bibi Golam’, authored by Bimal Mitra.

In 1952, he dramatised Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s ‘Subarna Golak’, and even acted in plays such as ‘Blackout’ and ‘Sat Tulsi’. An accomplished author too, his bibliography includes ‘Hitopadesa’, ‘Bisvarupa-darsana’, ‘Rana-berana’, ‘Bratakatha samagra’, ‘Srimadbahagabata’, and he even has a film script ‘Nishiddha Phal’ (1955) to his name.

Birendra Krishna Bhadra (youtube.com)

“One of the great stalwarts of radio drama production at AIR Kolkata, Birendra Krishna Bhadra was himself a good actor. Bhadra and Bani Kumar had mastered the art of editing scripts to perfection. Bhadra was a celebrated playwright as well,” Dr Manas Pratim Das writes in ‘Radio Play: The Kolkata story’.

“One particular play that upheld the acting and production faculty of Bhadra was Proloy. Written by Sachindra Nath Sengupta this was declared by Bhadra as the first two-hour play for radio. It was first drama at AIR Kolkata to be preserved,” Das wrote.

Mahishasura Mardini, the famous 90-minute musical piece was first composed in 1931 under the direction of Pankaj Kumar Mullick. The script by Bani Kumar is a combination of a narration, hymns and Bengali devotional songs on the creation of goddess Durga to kill the demon king Mahishasura.

For several years, Mahishasura Mardini was played live with well-known artistes including Manabendra Mukhopadhyay, Arati Mukhopadhyay, Supriti Ghosh, Bimal Bhusan, Utpala Sen, Tarun Banerjee, Krishna Dasgupta, Dwijen Mukhopadhyay, Pratima Banerjee, Shyamal Mitra, Sandhya Mukhopadhyay, Sumitra Sen, Ashima Bhattacharya, Shipra Bose and Pankaj Mallik. It was only recorded in 1966, after which the recorded version was played everywhere.

All India Radio, Kolkata, has tried several times with different voices, one of it was by noted actor Uttam Kumar in 1976, but none of it managed to create the magic woven by Bhadra. The legend passed away on November 3, 1991, at the age of 86, leaving us the legacy of his unmatched, haunting voice that continues to mark the beginning of Pujo in Bengali households on the day of Mahalaya.

People doing pitri tarpan on the day of Mahalaya. Mahalaya marks the beginning of ‘Devipaksha’, putting an end to ‘Pitripaksha’ (jansatta.com)

And though many gawk at the thought of having to wake up at around 4am to tune in to AIR, it’s also available on YouTube, as well as on an app called ‘Mahalaya’ for Android and IOS users. It also broadcast in Hindi for the pan-India audience. This year, the Durga Puja starts on September 19 (Mahalaya) and will end on September 30 (Bijoya Dashami).

Come Tuesday, we will be setting our radios to the frequency of Birendra Krishna Bhadra’s Mahishasur Mardini, will you?

Goddess Durga has starred in Bengali ads for years – so why is Jawed Habib in hot water now?

During Durga Puja, the goddess’ image is evoked to sell everything from restaurant menus to plywood, writes Deepanjan Ghosh on the Scroll. Read on: 

A newspaper advertisement featuring the Hindu goddess Durga at a Jawed Habib salon, in which she appears to be preparing for the impending Durga Puja festivities in Bengal, has landed hair stylist Jawed Habib in trouble. Habib, owner of the Jawed Habib multi-city salon chain, has been accused of hurting religious sentiments and mocking Hindu deities.

95 Pally Puja Committee Ad

The outrage appears to be somewhat misplaced because Habib’s intended audience – Bengalis and more specifically Kolkatans, who are preparing for Durga Puja – is far from offended. The people who called out the advertisement on social media appear mainly to be from outside Bengal. Shortly after the advertisement appeared on Twitter, a complaint was lodged against Habib in Hyderabad, and a Jawed Habib salon was vandalised in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh.

In Kolkata, as people prepare for madness on the streets with a Durga Puja pandal in every lane and confusing traffic diversions, the biggest controversy in recent times has been caused by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee referring to government servants as dogs.

An advertisement for Sylvan Plywood.

Personal gods
In a recent article Catch News, Ashis Nandy writes about how India once had a robust tradition of Isht Devtas or personal gods. These were not distant and formal deities but ones who were batting for the devotee, caring for his special concerns, doing little things for him. This is the sort of relationship that Bengalis have always shared with Durga – in Bengal, Durga is more than a goddess, she is the daughter of the house. She is Uma, the reincarnation of Sati, married to Lord Shiva. Every year, when she returns to her paternal abode with her children for a period of five days, the feeling in the air is rather like when a beloved aunt or a married elder sister comes home for a visit.

Bengali children grow up with stories of Durga slaying Mahishasur, the demon who took the form of a buffalo. Durga’s children are treated more like distant cousins than distant gods – each has a distinct character. Ganesh is the plump, obedient, occasionally mischievous, child who is bullied by others. Kartik is always nattily dressed, and perhaps a little vain. Lakshmi is the naughty one and Saraswati the studious, serious one. If one were to think of gods as family, it would logically follow that one could sometimes josh with them, the way Bengalis are known to do.

Out of context
Times Group’s Bengali publication, Ei Samay, recently quoted artist Gautam Benegal, who grew up in Kolkata, on the controversy surrounding Habib’s advertisement. Benegal said that it would be difficult for anyone who wasn’t Bengali or wasn’t brought up in Bengal, to see the advertisement in its correct context – Bengalis who have read Parashuram (the pen name of author Rajsekhar Basu) and Sukumar Ray, understand humour and satire, and are therefore able to take such cartoons in the right spirit.

Bengal has a long tradition of creating satire and advertisements using Hindu deities. The Anandabazar Patrika Group’s Bengali television channel releases an animated short film called Mahishasur Pala or The Mahishasura Affair every year on the occasion of Durga Puja. The animated skit, which is scripted and voiced by some of Bengal’s best-known comics, contains sarcastic references to current affairs and politics and even hilarious situations such as Durga and Mahishasura temporarily pausing mid-battle so that they can answer their mobile phones.

It is common to see restaurant billboards advertising their Puja special menus with each of Durga’s ten hands holding a different dish. Since this is Bengal, most of the dishes are meat and fish.

An advertisement for Air Costa airlines.

In a surprising coincidence, eight years ago, on September 27, 2009, ABP’s Sunday English supplement Graphiti had published a cartoon that featured Saraswati saying: “We can’t get our hair styled at Habib’s, we have to wear it long and loose for four days.”

So what has everyone so riled up about Habib’s advertisement in 2017?

Tradition of satire
Bengali culture has seen much worse when it comes to mocking the gods. The popular song Menoka Mathae De Lo Ghomta urges Menoka, Uma’s mother, to cover her head in shame because her daughter has chosen Shiva for a husband – and the ash-smeared, chillum-smoking Shiva, known to hang out in cremation ghats, is no ideal son-in-law.

Another folk song, Kalankini Radha, refers to Krishna using the word that was infamously used by Union Minister of State, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, in her election campaign. Veteran actor Kamal Mitra, as Reverend Krishnamohan Bandopadhyay in a scene from the film Vidyasagar (1950), takes Hinduism apart – Bandopadhyay questions the caste system and untouchability, accuses Hindus of persecuting freethinkers and even says that it is no sin to eat beef.

In the celebrated 1977 comedy film Jamalaye Jibanta Manush, the famous Bengali comedian Bhanu Bandopadhyay literally raises hell when he is taken to heaven by mistake, that too while he is still alive. Bandopadhyay starts a revolution in heaven, to fix what he says are outdated rules and norms that Hindu Gods such as Yama, the God of Death, are following. A mention must also be made of Bengal’s famous “Kabi Gaan” tradition, which has many examples of the Gods being mocked and even abused.

Template response
In the week following Habib’s advertisement, everyone who claimed to have been offended or hurt had only one thing to say – “Would [Habib] have dared do this with Prophet Mohammed?” This uncanny similarity raises the suspicion that this may actually be a template response from the online troll armies organised to create communal disharmony, of which there have been multiple examples on social media.

In the film Hirak Rajar Deshey, a political satire craftily disguised as a children’s film, director Satyajit Ray shows a machine used for “mogoj dholai” or brainwashing. Workers, farmers and intellectuals who disagree with the autocratic king are shoved into a chamber and come out reciting rhyming couplets in praise of the king. If the attack on Jawed Habib is not a coordinated hate campaign, then it is a sign that a multitude of such campaigns in the past have had their effect. The people, it seems, have already drunk the Kool-Aid.

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