Martial Masks!

On January 15th 2011, the Cultural Committee organized ‘Martial Masks’, which was a rendition of Chhou dance from Purulia, West Bengal.
The event was organized in collaboration with SPICMACAY, which is the Society for Promotion of Indian Classical Music and Culture Amongst Youth. SPICMACAY is a voluntary, apolitical, participatory student movement which aims to enrich the education process by exposing students to the rich cultural traditions of India. In the thirty three years of its existence, SPIC MACAY has opened more than 300 chapters, both in India and abroad and it organises more than 2500 programmes every year in schools and colleges. Our alliance with SPICMACAY has indeed been a successful one, what with Pandit Chaurasia’s performance last year, and Martial Masks this year. And we are of the hope that it will continue to be so.


This year, due to highly unfortunate circumstances we could not host the Manganiars from Rajasthan. Instead, we were given the opportunity to have the Tarapada Chhou group, a team of 18 men from Purulia, who performed for us ‘Mahishasura Mardini’, the legendary tale of the slaying of Mahishasura by Goddess Durga. The rendition of the story, which most of us are familiar with, in a dance form which is an infusion of tribal, folk and classical dances and martial arts, was nothing short of interesting.
The audience, who mostly consisted of students and faculty from NUJS and certain representatives of SPICMACAY, were left spellbound and honoured the humble artists with a well deserved standing ovation.
The evening was brought to an end with an introduction of the Tarapada Chhou group, along with an address to the students by Mr. Kanak Sankar Mukherjee, one of the organisers from SPICMACAY, who brought our attention to the artists, their skills and the kind of humble lives they lead, imploring us to keep in mind the finesse we witnessed that evening and to respect and work for the survival of every such cultural form that makes our country the wonderful place it is.



The event was a success despite many hurdles, and it was possible only due to the untiring efforts of the members of the Cultural Committee, the organisers from SPICMACAY, the ever enthusiastic volunteers, and a wonderful audience.

[For more pics of the event, please visit Creative Genes, managed by Vivek Kumar, one of the most brilliant photographers you will come across.]

(as penned by Varsha Bhattcharya, our co-convenor who emceed the event)