মনের ঘরে পরের বসত | Songs of Desire, Songs of Resistance
Date: 22 December 2024
Time: 4:00 - 5:30 PM
Venue: KCC Library
KCC’S AMI Arts Festival 2024 presents a soulful performance of folk songs of Bengal and Assam and storytelling exploring the acts of affection and relationships beyond marriage among young brides as sites of resistance by the teacher-and-student duo Smt. Purabi Bhattacharyya and Ruchira Mukherjee.
In Assam's patriarchal society, where bride price was a pervasive practice, young girls were often given away in marriage to men who were significantly older, infants, mentally challenged, widowed, or ailing. Women were treated as commodities, their sexuality confined to childbearing, and their desires consistently denied, let alone being acknowledged.
In this oppressive context, women found ways to assert their agency and keep their youthfulness alive through subtle acts of affection and clandestine relationships beyond marriage, known as 'porokia.' These acts (actual or in many cases imaginative) of affection and transgression were reinterpreted as divine and innocent, much like the mythological love between Radha and Krishna. Through folksongs and storytelling, women preserved the tales of porokia, transforming them into a form of resistance against societal norms. These narratives, passed down through generations, became sites of women's resilience and determination to reclaim their autonomy and desire.
About the Artistes:
Smt. Purabi Bhattacharyya is a folk music activist and educator based in Kolkata who had been associated with IPTA, the frontal cultural organition of Communist Party of India. Her passion for music was re-ignited on meeting famous folk music singer, collector, explorer, and cultural activist Kali Dasgupta. After her retirement from her job as teacher at Bethune Collegiate School, she is now a full-time folk music activist. Since Kali’s Dasgupta’s death in 2005, Purabi Bhattacharyya has been leading the folk music movement in West Bengal with her another musical colleague Dr Jolly Bagchi and are now teaching the young generation the true essence of folk music.
Ruchira Mukherjee is an evolving educator working to enhance educational development for children from diverse communities by utilizing play and art-based methods for young learners. She is also a passionate theatre practitioner, actor, and musician with an M.A. in Sociology from St. Xavier's College (Autonomous), Kolkata.
