Sri Lankan students to take part in Festival:

Hillwood girls present Tagore songs

by Purabi Das

Scintillating performance at Barsha Mangal Festival

Santiniketan: Rabindranath Tagore’s concept of bringing the whole world into one nest was reflected in this year ‘Barsha Mangal’, a festival to welcome the monsoon at Visva-Bharati University on August 16. This festival was celebrated at Gour Prangan on the campus.

This year, a team of 27 students from Hillwood College, Sri Lanka and students from a girl’s school in Sri Lanka performed at the festival. Seven students from Hillwood College performed with the song, Hridya Mondirey, Domru Ghuru Ghuru along with Visva-Bharati students.

Although students from different parts of the world are studying at Visva-Bharati, this is the first time they performed to Tagore’s songs. Indrani Mukherjee, Principal, Sangeet Bhavana, said: “A team of 27 student and four faculty members arrived at Santiniketan. It is really a pleasure for us that students from different countries performed with students of Visva-Bharati. They practised with us every day. Though they found it difficult to understand Bengali, they were able to follow the rhythm.”

According to Gautam Bhattacharya, an expert on Tagore’s works, the concept of celebrating the different seasons was first started by Tagore’s son Samirendranath Tagore in 1907. The first festival of this series is celebrated on the day of Sree Panchami or Saraswati Puja to welcome the spring. This festival is now celebrated on Holi every year.

The festival to greet the monsoon was first started by Tagore as ‘Ritu Utsav’ in 1908. Earlier, the festivals were not celebrated on a fixed day like now. However, after 1951, when Visva-Bharati become a central university, a new schedule was drawn up marking particular dates for these festivals.

‘Briksha Ropon’ is the first festival to hail the monsoon. It is marked as Tree Plantation Day’. The celebration takes place on the 22 day of the month of Shraban, according to the Bengali calendar. ‘Briksha Ropon’ is followed by ‘Rabindra Saptah’, another festival that goes on for one week before Barsha Mangal.

However, the cultural secretary of Karmi Mandali, Sukumar Das, said: “Barsha Mangal was scheduled to be celebrated at Gour Prangan instead of Natya Ghar if the rain is under control on that day. This was done to accommodate the huge crowd that gathers to enjoy the festival, Das added. “This year, 16 songs on rain was performed. Students of all the bhavanas participated”.

Veranja, a school student from Sri Lanka, performed to the song Hridya Mandirey, Domru Ghuru Ghuru said: “I find this university very unique because people speaking different languages study here. I am enjoying practising with the students here. I also wish to take admission to Sangeet Bhavana after my schooling”.

Veronika Nawarathna, music teacher of Hillwood College said: “We are really enjoying it here. Though we cannot understaned the songs, our students performed with the soothing rhythm. We also performed a few Bengali songs like Jodui tor Dak Suney Keo Na Ashey, Ebar Tor Mora Gange and some classical and semi-classical songs in our Sinhala language.