Festivals In Kolkata
Kolkata (or Calcutta) has many festivals throughout the year. Durga Puja is the largest festival of West Bengal, and it features colourful pandals, decorative idols of Hindu goddess Durga and her family, lighting decorations and fireworks. Other major festivals are Diwali, Kali Puja, Holi, Saraswati Puja, Poush Parbon, Poila Boishakh, Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha, etc. Bengali New Year The Bengali New Year or "Poila Baisakh" (the first day of the month of Baisakh) is celebrated around 15 April on the basis of the lunar calendar of Bangabda. Visitors to homes are greeted with sweets, and trade establishments are decorated with auspicious garlands of marigold and 'aam' leaves. Shop-owners and businessmen offer puja at Dakshineshwar Kali Temple and Kalighat Kali Temple in the morning with new ledgers(Halkhata). Businessmen also offer free sweets as a goodwill gesture on this day. It is celebrated by cultural programmes throughout Kolkata. Religious festivals Durga Puja ] ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kolkata
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, commercial, and financial hub of Eastern India and the main port of communication for North-East India. According to the 2011 Indian census, Kolkata is the seventh-most populous city in India, with a population of 45 lakh (4.5 million) residents within the city limits, and a population of over 1.41 crore (14.1 million) residents in the Kolkata Metropolitan Area. It is the third-most populous metropolitan area in India. In 2021, the Kolkata metropolitan area crossed 1.5 crore (15 million) registered voters. The Port of Kolkata is India's oldest operating port and its sole major riverine port. Kolkata is regarded as the cultural capital of India. Kolkata is the second largest Bengali-speaking city after Dhaka ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pandal At College Square Kalkuta
A ''pandal'' in India and neighbouring countries, is a fabricated structure, either temporary or permanent, that is used at many places such as either outside a building or in an open area such as along a public road or in front of a house. This canopy or big tent is often used in a religious or other events that gathers people together, such as a wedding, fair, exhibition or festival. In Hinduism In Hinduism, a ''pandal'' is a temporary structure set up to usually venerate the god and goddess such as Ganesha during Ganesh Chaturthi, Krishna during Krishna Janmasthami or the Goddess Durga during Durga Puja, known as '' puja pandal''. Pandals are also used for nonreligious activities. For instance, these tents are put up during cultural programs. In Buddhism in Sri Lanka In a ritual unique to Sri Lanka, ''Vesak thorana'' pandals are set up during the Vesak festival, with illuminated panels illustrated with episodes from the life of the Gautama Buddha and Jathaka Katha or s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nandikar
Nandikar ( bn, নান্দীকার) is a theatre group in India. The group has its headquarters in Kolkata in the state of West Bengal, but works around the world. History Nandikar's story begins on 29 June 1960 at maternal uncle's house of Asit Bandyopadhyay at B K Pal Avenue. In the presence of Ajitesh Bandyopadhyay, Asit Bandyopadhyay and some friends of Manindra College like Dipen Sengupta, Satyen Mitra, Ajay Ganguly, Mahesh Singh and Chinmoy Roy, 'Nandikar' was established on June 29, 1960. Members of the party's first executive committee were elected: President Ajitesh Banerjee, Secretary Asit Banerjee, Assistant Secretary Ajay Ganguly and Treasurer Satyen Mitra. One of the founding members Dipen Sengupta named the group party Nandikar. The logo was designed by none other than Satyajit Ray. The group was later joined by Keya Chakraborty, Bibhas Chakraborty, Ashok Mukhopadhyay and Rudra Prasad Sengupta. The group's early productions were mainly adaptations of non-Indi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nandikar's National Theatre Festival
Nandikar's National Theatre Festival was started in 1984. It is arranged annually in Kolkata, India, between 16 and 25 December. Initiated and organized, as the name suggest, by the theatre group Nandikar. The festival is held at the Academy of Fine Arts, Calcutta. The stated twin objective for the festival is to facilitate cultural integration in India and providing a forum for exchange of notes among theatre workers from different parts of the country. However, the festival was initially a part of Nandikar's silver jubilee, but due to the good reception the group decided to turn it into an annual event. The festival display productions by leading and ''avant-garde'' theatre troupes from all over India and, occasionally, from countries like United States, Sweden, Switzerland, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh. Exhibitions and workshops are also arranged in connection with the festival. See also *Nandikar Nandikar ( bn, নান্দীকার) is a theatre group in India. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rituparno Ghosh
Rituparno Ghosh (31 August 1963 – 30 May 2013) was an Indian film director, actor, writer and lyricist. After pursuing a degree in economics, he started his career as a creative artist at an advertising agency. He received recognition for his second feature film ''Unishe April'' which won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film. Having won 19 National Awards, along with his contemporaries Aparna Sen and Goutam Ghose, Rituparno heralded contemporary Bengali cinema to greater heights. Ghosh died on 30 May 2013 in Kolkata after a heart attack. Ghosh was also one of the openly homosexual personalities in Indian cinema. Ghosh was influenced by the works of Satyajit Ray and was an avid reader of Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore's works are frequently referenced to in his films. He also made a documentary titled ''Jeevan Smriti'' on the life of Tagore. In his career spanning almost two decades, he won 12 National and numerous International awards. His unreleased Bengali movie ''Su ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mrinal Sen
Mrinal Sen (''Beng.'' মৃণাল সেন; 14 May 1923 – 30 December 2018) was an Indian film director, and screenwriter known for his work primarily in Bengali, and few Hindi and Telugu language films. Regarded as one of the finest Indian filmmakers, along with his contemporaries Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, and Tapan Sinha, Sen played major role in the New Wave cinema of eastern India. Sen has received various national and international honors including eighteen Indian National Film Awards. The Government of India honored him with the Padma Bhushan, and the Government of France honored him with the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, while Russian Government honored him with the Order of Friendship. Sen was also awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the highest award for filmmakers in India. He was one of the few Indian filmmakers having won awards at the big three film festivals viz., Cannes, Venice and the Berlinale. Sen was a self described "private Marxist". Influ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray (; 2 May 1921 – 23 April 1992) was an Indian director, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker, author, essayist, lyricist, magazine editor, illustrator, calligrapher, and music composer. One of the greatest auteurs of film-making, Ray is celebrated for works including ''The Apu Trilogy'' (1955–1959), ''The Music Room'' (1958), ''The Big City'' (1963) and '' Charulata'' (1964). Ray was born in Calcutta to nonsense rhyme author Sukumar Ray. Starting his career as a commercial artist, Ray was drawn into independent film-making after meeting French filmmaker Jean Renoir and viewing Vittorio De Sica's Italian neorealist film '' Bicycle Thieves'' (1948) during a visit to London. Ray directed 36 films, including feature films, documentaries and shorts. Ray's first film, '' Pather Panchali'' (1955) won eleven international prizes, including the inaugural Best Human Document award at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival. This film, along with '' Aparajito'' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An atheist, he is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design. Dawkins first came to prominence with his 1976 book '' The Selfish Gene'', which popularised the gene-centred view of evolution and introduced the term ''meme''. With his book '' The Extended Phenotype'' (1982), he introduced into evolutionary biology the influential concept that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment, for example, when a beaver builds a dam. His 2004 The Ancestor's Tale set out to make understanding evolution simple for the general public, by tracing common ancestors back from humans to the origins of life. Over time, numerous religious people challe ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Günter Grass
Günter Wilhelm Grass (born Graß; ; 16 October 1927 – 13 April 2015) was a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was born in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland). As a teenager, he served as a drafted soldier from late 1944 in the '' Waffen-SS'' and was taken as a prisoner of war by US forces at the end of the war in May 1945. He was released in April 1946. Trained as a stonemason and sculptor, Grass began writing in the 1950s. In his fiction, he frequently returned to the Danzig of his childhood. Grass is best known for his first novel, '' The Tin Drum'' (1959), a key text in European magic realism. It was the first book of his Danzig Trilogy, the other two being '' Cat and Mouse'' and '' Dog Years''. His works are frequently considered to have a left-wing political dimension, and Grass was an active supporter of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). ''The ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hindustani Classical Music
Hindustani classical music is the classical music of northern regions of the Indian subcontinent. It may also be called North Indian classical music or, in Hindustani, ''shastriya sangeet'' (). It is played in instruments like the violin, sitar and sarod. Its origins from the 12th century CE, when it diverged from Carnatic music, the classical tradition in South India. Hindustani classical music arose in the Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb, a period of great influence of Perso-Arabic arts in the subcontinent, especially the Northern parts. This music combines the Indian classical music tradition with Perso-Arab musical knowledge, resulting in a unique tradition of gharana system of music education. History Around the 12th century, Hindustani classical music diverged from what eventually came to be identified as Carnatic classical music.The central notion in both systems is that of a melodic musical mode or '' raga'', sung to a rhythmic cycle or '' tala''. It is melodic music, wi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Holi Shop
Holi (), also known as the Festival of Colours, the Festival of Spring, and the Festival of Love,The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) p. 874 "Holi /'həʊli:/ noun a Hindu spring festival ...". is an ancient Hindu religious festival and one of the most popular festivals in Hinduism. It celebrates the eternal and divine love of Radha Krishna. The day also signifies the triumph of good over evil, as it commemorates the victory of Lord Vishnu as Narasimha Narayana over Hiranyakashipu. It originated and is predominantly celebrated in the Indian subcontinent but has also spread to other regions of Asia and parts of the Western world through the Indian diaspora.Ebeling, Karin (10), Holi, an Indian Festival, and its Reflection in English Media; Die Ordnung des Standard und die Differenzierung der Diskurse: Akten des 41. Linguistischen Kolloquiums in Mannheim 2006, 1, 107, [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Saraswati Idol In Hindu School, Kolkata,India
Saraswati ( sa, सरस्वती, ) is the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music, art, speech, wisdom, and learning. She is one of the Tridevi, along with the goddesses Lakshmi and Parvati. The earliest known mention of Saraswati as a goddess is in the Rigveda. She has remained significant as a goddess from the Vedic period through the modern period of Hindu traditions. She is generally shown to have four arms, holding a book, a rosary, a water pot, and a musical instrument called the veena. Each of these items have a symbolic meaning in Hinduism. Some Hindus celebrate the festival of Vasant Panchami (the fifth day of spring, and also known as Saraswati Puja and Saraswati Jayanti in many regions of India) in her honour, and mark the day by helping young children learn how to write the letters of the alphabet on that day. The goddess is also revered by believers of the Jain religion of west and central India, as well as some Buddhist sects. Etymology Saraswati, is a Sans ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |