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 For
Bratati – Bratati Bandyopadhyay – it has been a long journey from the simple
rustic surroundings, of a sprawling ancestral house in Haridaypur – a distant
suburb of Calcutta – to the dazzling center stage of performing arts in
distant shores. It has been a journey measured not so much in length of time,
but counted in milestones set up by her own dedication, perseverance, skills and
an unique equation with her music.
Her
parents Maya and Manjul Kumar Bandyopadhyay in recalling Baratati’s infancy
and early childhood marvel at her phenomenal memory even at the age of three, by
which time she had learnt by heart and could recite upwards of 300 nursery
rhymes and short poems, and had made her first stage appearance reciting a
difficult poem by Kazi Nazrul Islam. What was evident even at that tender age
was Bratati’s fascination for sound and rhyme, images and tunes and her own
effort at interpreting them in a manner rare in one so young.
It
is not though that Bratati grew up only in the company of poets and their
diverse work. She lived and played like children her age, with the added
advantage, however, of ‘space’ all around her – space where trees grew and
flowers bloomed, birds flitted across the sky which was abundantly visible
wherever she looked out, space where the echoing chimes of a nearby temple bell
mingled with the twinkling glow of fireflies in the darkened orchards, space
where one phantom image smoothly vignetted with another in an ethereal palette
of colours.
Thus
the seasons and years rolled on, with Bratati enlarging her mental canvas to
pack in more and more scenes and themes in a new light of perceptions. She
learned from the world at large around her.
Her
academic education progressed side by side, and Bratati started her schooling at
Bethune Collegiate School, a premier educational institution in Calcutta, which
is celebrating its 150th anniversary in the new millennium year. At
school she seized every opportunity to polish her inborn talent as an
elocutionist, and participated in inter school at an All Bengal Inter School
Elocution Contest, she won the First Prize for her alma mater.
From
school to college and then onto the Calcutta University for her post graduate
studies were but normal stage of her academic pursuit. Here too Bratati came out
with flying colours, securing First Class in her Master’s degree in Economics.
During
all these years though, a silent transformation was taking place which, equally
silently but intensely created a synthesis in her attitude to life itself. Her
formal education increased her forays into the world of letters in which she was
always much at home, and her creative bent of mind helped her in quest for new
horizons of expression through poems, dramas, audio features – all built
around her first love elocution – and culminating in that single word which
expresses her philosophy best – “perfection”.
Bratati
kept all the windows of her mind wide open to allow the best in every sphere to
gain easy entry into her mental framework, which while being spacious enough to
receive all wave lengths of creativity was yet rigid enough to filter them to
match her own perceptions. Bratati was deeply inspired by the stalwarts and
masters of the performing arts of her younger days – Suchitrta Mitra (from
whom she took music lessons for some time), Sambhu Mitra, Kazi Sabyasachi and
their likes each of whom has a special niche in Bratati’s mind, along with
some of our great contemporary poets and authors – Nirendra Nath Chakraborty,
Sankha Ghosh, Shakti Chattopadhyay, Sunil Gangopadhyay, Purnendu Patrea,
Dibyendu Palit and younger generation poets like Subho Dasgupta. But above all,
the colossus that engulfs and pervades Bratati’s entire psyche in none other
than Gurudeb Rabindra Nath Tagore. While in respect of everyone else Bratati
imbibes and synthesizes their individual genius with the alchemy of her own
creativity, it is to Tagore that she totally surrenders herself.
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