Sex workers' children to take Binodini's tale beyond frontiers

After successful staging of the angst-ridden life tale of the 19th century songstress, despite she getting acclaims from stalwarts from Ramkrishna Paramahans to Nilratan Sarkar for her portrayals, the 'Komol Gandhar' of Sonagachi is all set to take Binodini Dasi and her characters in religious and historical dramas outside.
"Yes, the inaugural evening's performance was like a standing ovation. Our children were hugely impressed with the response to their first ever tryst with live audience. And more importantly how the people linked their craving for recognition and the same yearning by the songstresses of yesteryears," a spokesperson from Komal Gandhar, the cultural organization working woth sex worker's children in Asia's largest red light area, said.

"We now will take this move forward. By staging the Quest for Songstress elsewhere in the country and also abroad in foreseeable days," mentor of the children and well-known contemporary singer Riddhi Bandyopadhyay said.
"If we don't pore over the antecedents of some members of the cast and just see how they brought that era alive, we will realise any sitgma is only the creation of this society," Alakananda Ray, eminent danceuse and architect of the culture therapy movement among the prisoners in correctional homes, said.
Roy, whose stage plays 'Balmiki Protibha' and 'Mokshagati' involving undertrials and convicts had earned kudos all over the country and even inspired an award winner Bengali film, said 'Binodinir Khonje' can have the same road map as the Tagorean classic if the exposure came to a universal audience.

"There can't be any word like the subalterns. Every child is precocious, every child is specially gifted. Like every undertrial," Alakananda said.