Ebong amra govinda biography

Amal, Vimal, Kamal and Indrajit
Vimal, Kamal and Indrajit
Kamal and Indrajit
And Indrajit.
Indrajit.
Indrajit.
Indrajit.

This chorus occurs early in the play Ebong Indrajit (“And Indrajit ”) by Badal Sircar.

I read it for the first time when I was eighteen, and stayed up the whole night to read till the final scene. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the chorus which repeats “Ebong Indrajit”, fuelled the imagination of many when it was first performed in 1965 by the theatre group Shouvanik in Muktangan Rangalaya, a small auditorium in Kolkata.

Among the people who heard Sircar read the play for the first time for a small, private audience was Samik Bandyopadhyay. “I hadn’t imagined a play like that,” he said.

It was on Samik-da’s  invitation that I visited Tepantar, a theatre campus in Satkahunia village in Burdwan district, West Bengal, in December 2016.

It was set up by the theatre group “Ebong Amra”, The name “Ebong Amra” (“And Us”) immediately reminded me