Bratati loves poetry for its own sake, and she loves to recite poetry for the fulfillment of her desire to share her own perceptions with her audience. And …. everytime she achieves satisfaction unerringly and with distinction that generates memorability.

With well over a thousand live-performance shows to her credit in different parts of the country, Bratati’s elocution has touched the hearts of critics and commoners, national and international dignitaries and the village housewife alike with her magic alchemy. How does she achieve this? Essentially …. thorough ‘belief’. ‘Belief’ in the cosmic nature of good poetry, ‘belief’ in her own ability to empathise with each and everyone in her audience. Bratati succeeds in re-confirming these beliefs every time she concludes yet another performance.

An acutely alert mind is visible behind the selections that Bratati decides on for each performance as is she knows beforehand the composition of her audience, their loves and hates, their likes and dislikes, their moods, ethos and even their innermost desires. Blessed with a phenomenal memory and a voice that emotes with rare candour, an uncanny sense of drama, a clear and melodious singing voice and an acute perception of the innermost essence of every single line that she recites, hearing Bratati is an exquisite experience that her audience cherishes for days and months thereafter. Her immediacy is truly a one-to-one equation. This is what makes Bratati totally acceptable to the widest cross-section of growing millions of listeners the world over.

The year 1996 saw the first culmination of her total acceptability, when Bratati gave a 3 hour solo performance to a packed audience in a sell-out show “EK SANDHAYE EKA BRATATI” (Bratati alone in a lone evening), that had to be repeated with variations, a number of times thereafter by public demand. It was arguably the first time that such a daring venture was made by any elocution artiste, who actually enthralled her audience for so long and recited totally from memory. The rave reviews she received were unique too.

Her popularity as a leading newscaster over the national television, or as a top-rung compere of programmes on HMV-FM and now RPG Cable Radio are also matters of her individual distinction in these fields – activities that engage her total professionalism at those times.

With her flair for writing (Bratati contributes frequently to leading Bengali periodicals, and has rececntly published her memories – “Abritti Charchar Dinalipi”) Bratati has widened her communication reach. She has also set up her own elocution, school “Kabbayan” with a large group of devoted students numbering 200 or so.

To different people Bratati means differently such is her varied charisma, but to the world at large Bratati wants to introduce herself in the words of one of her most popular recitations as “AAMIEE SEI MEYE” (I am that same girl) …. a girl that you and I have known through the ages, in sadness or joy, at home or out there, in love or in hatred, in pride or in shame, in conquest or in longing – in different moods, at different times, but always intense, always honest.

No wonder Bratati identifies herself best with the opening lines of Rabindra Nath’s poem “BOJHA-PARA” – “Say it unto your mind-Accept the truth, with total ease-All good or evil kind”

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