‘Agomani’, a musical sojourn by 8 promising youngsters of Silchar on Mahalaya

Sept. 17: Come autumn and everybody seems to get into the festive mode, which starts pretty much from today. Mahalaya, which marks the beginning of Devi-Paksha and the end of the Pitri-Paksha (the Shradh or the mourning period) is an auspicious day for Bengalis, who celebrate it with much enthusiasm. While there are many stories and/or folklore associated with the day, largely, people believe that on this day, Goddess Durga officially begins her journey from Mount Kailash — where she resides with her husband Lord Shiva — to her maternal home on Earth. Bengalis celebrate it with much fervour and remark intermittently, about the festive autumn weather and the ‘pujo-pujo‘ feel.

When talking about Mahalaya and its connection to Bengalis, one can’t forget about the eternal ‘Mahishasur-Mardini’ programme on radio by Birendra Krishna Vadra. The legendary narrator recites the holy verses and tells the story of the descent of Durga to earth in his unique style. From generations, the shlokas and chants are so attached to the Bengali’s culture that each year the dawn of Mahalaya appears with new hope with this eternal programme.

On the auspicious occasion of Mahalaya,the upcoming production house SR Official has come out with another collective titled Agomoni. way2barak spoke to the rising music producer Subhankar Roy about this special project and interacted with the 7 other promising youngsters who were part of this creative venture.The video Agomoni has been made to welcome Maa Durga in our lives virtually this year.

The video starts with ‘Ya Chandi’ sung by Biswaroop Deb Roy, Uddipta Nath, Parboni Choudhury and Saborni Dutta. Then comes ‘Chondipath’ done by Bhaskar Ghosh. Another song ‘Ogo amar Agomoni’ collabed by Subhankar Roy marks the end of the video. The Tabla has been played by Tonmoy Paul and the entire music arrangement has been done by Prantik Dey. The mixing and mastering of the audio has been done by Sound Kitchen Studio. The video will release at 10 am on 17th Sep,2020. Do enjoy this unique collective brought to you by some of the most talented young musicians of Silchar.

On how Mahalaya is an emotion altogether, Biswaroop Deb Roy says, “Purifying the soul with the divine creation of Birendra Krishna Bhadra’s Mahisashurmardini, Mahalaya is the time when i get spritually creative……I will not get tired if i have to draw 100 sketches of Durga nor will I get tired from listing the Agomoni songs…..such an energy booster is Mahalaya for me.

On how as an artist he thinks the ongoing pandemic will dampen this year’s Puja celebrations,producer Subhankar Roy states, “I think Bengalis won’t sit at home during Durga Puja as this is the only time of the year when they live their hearts out. But there has been losses for different type of artists who didn’t get any shows to do. We can’t celebrate like we always do but keeping in mind of our safety, we will celebrate it in our small way.

About the soul of Agomoni, Uddipta Nath believes “Agomoni is the indication of victory over evil. I feel an eternal joy in celebrating the defeat of evil power.”

Bhaskar Ghosh gets evocative on how he would spend the Mahalaya morning during the previous years saying, “At 4:00 am we would all wake up and start to listen to the radio where the AIR channel plays the Mahisasura-mardini and chants of Goddess Durga in the sonorous voice of Birendra Krishna Bhadra.

After that,we would all go out of the house for greeting our friends and family on the occasion of Mahalaya and would share our happiness regarding the arrival of Maa Durga and her family.We the Silcharians go to the Sadarghat Bridge because on the bridge several people come from the different parts of Silchar.It has indeed became a tradition of Silchar to visit Sadarghat Bridge.After that we the youths would ride towards the outskirts of Silchar because the morning view of any place is too beautiful and we all click photos for posting in Facebook and Instagram because it is trending and the photos also comes in a very beautiful manner,besides that we eat street food from any stall.

Cultural activists always look forward to performing on various platforms during this festive season.On how different this year will be, Parboni Choudhury replies, “Although in the previous years we have performed publicly to celebrate our festive excitement, this year it’ll definitely be different. Given the present situation of the pandemic, we look forward to perform through various social media platforms n stay connected digitally.”

And finally Subhankar summarises the message they are willing to send out via Agomoni in these extraordinarily bleak times, “As we are celebrating Mahalaya digitally this year, I wish everyone to celebrate the festival following all the protocols required in this pandemic situation.”

Here are the musicians sharing their thoughts on their association with the production

• Parboni Choudhury – Generally we have great fun n get to learn a lot while working as team *SWARALIPI* but this time although we couldn’t come together (physically) for this video, I really enjoyed this new experience where we got to decide everything digitally n tried to bring up this collaboration in front of everyone. Special thanks to SR official for making it possible!
• Biswaroop Deb Roy– It was a good experience working with SR Official production.
• Uddipta Nath– This project is really very special for me, because this is the first time I have done something related to Agomoni, which I always wanted to be a part of. I’m feeling blessed to be a tiny bit of such a special project.
• Bhaskar Surjo Ghosh– My Experience in the Agomoni Project was very very special.SR Official is an awesome team which is well recognised for its awesome & magnificant works. Subhankar Dada is always an inspiration for me as a singer & as a person too. When he offered me to chant a few lines of chandipath in this project I was very excited and as well a little bit nervous because it was my first music video. But it went good.
• Tonmoy Paul– It has always been great to work with Subhankar Roy. He executes the plan very nicely and he is very much sure of what he wants and how the product should finally look. So because of that we the one who are involved in his projects makes it very easy to work. He is doing a great work and giving platforms to many artists as well who individually are not able to do such projects. And one fun fact about him is that , he keeps experimenting with new stuffs.
• Prantik Dey– It was a great honour working on this project specifically because it is produced on the occasion of Mahalaya which is a big thing for Bengalis. I would like to thank Subhankar for letting me mix and master the track though he himself did a part of the editing.

This annual event of ‘Mahalaya’ not only hold a religious and spiritual significance, it also reminds us of the power of truth, of courage and of the universal fact that in the end, good will always triumph over evil.

**Dr. Himabrata Das, Registrar, Department of Psychiatry, Tezpur Medical College & Hospital (TMCH). Apart from this, he is a vivid lover of sports, an eloquent commentator and a columnist.