“The recitation world is going through a stage of starvation,” Manoj Kanti Dev

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Whenever I am asked to speak about recitation, the first thing that comes to my mind is Rabindranath Tagore’s poems. With all due respect to other stellar poets, I confess, when it comes to me, Rabindranath Tagore-poems always got more preference. Is Rabindranath himself the reason? He believed, poetry is not something to be kept within; instead it should be expressed through recitation and elocutions. Not only his belief, his poems too are written in such a manner that you feel they are meant for recitation.

The relationship between poems and recitations has been there since ancient times and Rabindranath himself is a proof of that. He often recited his poems, what an outstanding pronunciation he had, and that was coupled with a wide variance of voice modulations. These qualities are precious asset for any elocutionist mastering the art of recitation. His recitations also shattered the perception that one needs to have a baritone to recite poems.

After Rabindranath’s era many poets- Subhash Mukherjee, Shakti Chatterjee, Sunil Ganguly among others recited their own poems. Even feature film actors started getting into recitation. Shishir Kumar Bhaduri, Soumitra Chatterjee, Shambhu Mitra, Ajitesh Banerjee once ruled the recitation world.

Then came an era when Birendra Krishna Bhadra, Shambhu Mitra, Kaji Sabyasachi, Deb Dulal Banerjee, Niladri Sekhar Bose, Partho Ghosh-Gouri Ghosh, Jagannath Bose, Bratati Banerjee, contributed immensely to widespread the art.

Here arises a set of questions; while on one side, I am easily able to recall so many names renowned worldwide for their recitation, on the other side; with the same ease I am forgetting names of this era. Sutopa Banerjee, Subhon Shundor Bose, Medha Banerjee and that’s about it, there are no more names registered in my memory. Why such is the scenario?

Let us shift our focus to Barak Valley now; I have seen Sunil Roy Choudhury, Shanu Bhowmik and many other elocutionists reciting on stage. I grew up listening to Nilu (Sengupta), Deelu (Dhar), Polur (Mrinal Kanti Dutta Biswas). After that I met the likes of Ashit Chakraborty, Alok Paul Choudhury, Pradeep Das (Babul), Amit Sikdar, Debanjan Mukherjee, Sabyasachi Purkayastha. Apart from them, I saw Bishotush Choudhury, Sanchayita Bhattacharjee (Choudhury), Ajanta Das, Hashna Ara Sheli, Arunima Deb (Bhattacharjee) ruling the stages in this region.

Then came a spell of scarcity! In this case Barak-West Bengal are on the same page. It is important to note here: what has not changed is the habit of scheduling a recitation between songs at events; that is still very much there in both Barak Valley and West Bengal. “We have heard many songs now let’s change the mood a little…” we still hear such announcements.

Let us get back to Barak again; here we have different hurdles to tackle. We need to invest ourselves with dedication to adapt the language and pronunciation, when it comes to theater-plays or recitation. That’s because the language we converse in, in our daily life is actually a dialect of Bangla. When it comes to recitation barring an odd one here or there all the poems are written in proper Bengali. So the argument that arises here is, is it because of the challenges we are losing interest? But then there is a counter-argument too; this is a challenge in Barak Valley, but what about West Bengal? They do not have any such problem, why do we face the same scarcity in West Bengal too?

One possible reason could be; earlier the dialogues in theater-plays demanded high-octane recitation, these days, dialogues are not the same. The art of creating imageries in audience’s minds through a variety of voice modulations is fast diminishing. Side-by-side, the poems are also shifting their track, usage of modern words is the trend now-a-days, result of which, it has become extremely difficult to find recite–worthy poems. Therefore, we are forced to go back to square one- Rabindra-Nazrul-Sukanta-Jibonanondo.

I must admit another thing, the stages these days are way better decorated and the ambition today is not to prepare well but to stand on a well prepared stage.

Overall, sad but true, the recitation world is going through a stage of starvation.

Please Note: The author wrote the opinion piece in Bengali, this English version is our interpretation of his Bengali article. We clarify; the words used in this story are not literal translation of his Bengali version and hence cannot be attributed to him. To read the original Bengali version please Click Here

The author of this article, Manoj Kanti Dev is a veteran in the world of recitation. He is renowned for his command over the art, we thank him for his contribution.