An evening of Tagore’s songs

The event is organized jointly by the Bangladesh and Indian High Commissions and will be held on 28 March (Monday).

Much less is said, if it is claimed that Rezwana Choudhury Bannya, is the first name to be uttered, when it comes to Robindro-Shongeet, that the level of her skill has attained a legendary status, for this era, in both Bangladesh and India, that her passion for her craft as a singer, with her kind of deep and somber tonal quality, has manifestly achieved a religious height of spirituality.

Rather, apart from her internationally appreciated success as a performer, the journey she has made, the life she has chosen to live, the chronologically accelerated degree of her involvement with Robindro-Shongeet throughout her entire life till date, putting all these different angles and aspects together, suggest, an absolutely reformed and dramatically renovated identity, from strictly a respectable singer to a devotee, in the pilgrimage of Robindro-Shongeet. Rezwana Choudhury Bannya is one of the most prominent messengers of Tagore’s philosophy, the soil of Bangla culture has ever seen.

Though Rabindranath Tagore has touched and enriched almost all the layers and branches of Bangla culture, yet his music alone is often labeled as the mirror, the summary or the essence of his philosophy. Tagore’s music is like an ocean where the swimmers decide and choose their own degree of enjoyment. Listening to others singing Tagore’s music without understanding a bit, absorbing into it’s poetry, fathoming and sinking into the diversity of it’s tunes, learning it, mastering it, singing it, believing it, living in it, and then finally feeling and facing the urge, the hunger and the thirst of spreading it as far as possible, all these are different phases of experience, one may encounter, deeper down the ocean during the swim. Starting from simply being attracted to the inevitable beauty of Tagore’s music, Rezwana Choudhury Bannya, has crossed all the phases comfortably, and can be said to have settled at the pinnacle of her quest, to serve as a messenger of Tagore’s philosophy, by shouldering the heavy duty of passing along from generation to generation, the magical, material, divine, earthly, many other complex and simple mysteries of life, that she has learned and consumed during her journey. Tagore himself lived his realizations as his philosophy, and taking his life as a model, few passionate disciples have attempted to replicate it with the belief of keeping it alive, and have the tide flowing, by ignoring completely the mighty blow of time. Rezwana  Choudhury Bannya, is one of those few,  for our generation, in terms of time, and in all over the world, where a single Bengali-soul exists, in terms of space, who has exemplified through her life, her duty to flow the Rabindra-river limitlessly, and eternally, to calm every isolated and restless soul with peace.

Born in Rangpur, Bangladesh, her interest in music as a child turned to passion with the inspirations from her family, and she received her early singing lessons from her uncle Abdul Ali, and at a later stage, from eminent singers like Sanjida Khatun and Atiqul Islam at Chhayanat and Bulbul Academy of Fine Arts (BAFA). She finished her schooling and joined the economics program at the university, but with a constant pressure of deeper quest to dive into music and to live through music, she obtained a scholarship from Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), and her life in Shantiniketan began, where she enriched her soul by adopting the lifestyle that was designed and established by Tagore himself. It was here, under the indispensable supervision and ideological influence of her superiors, such as Kanika Bandyopadhya, Neelima Sen, Shoilajaranjan Mazumdar, Shantidev Ghosh and many more that she fell in love with Rabindra Shangeet, and slowly the love turned into devotion. Trained under the tutelage of legendary Robindro-Shongeet singer late Kanika Bandyopadhyay, Rezwana Choudhury Bannya has maximized the output of this rare privilege and mastered Tagore’s songs in their full flavor. Quite often she has gratefully expressed a very special place for Mohordi (Kanika Bandyopadhya) in her heart describing the relationship a very non-traditional one, far more than a typical guru-shishya may contain, in its depth and capacity. In her own deepest expressions:

‘It was Mohordi who infused the true love for Robindro Shongeet in me by taking me under her loving and nurturing care.  Everything that I have achieved today is because of her; she was indeed the guiding beacon in my life, my true guru:-the friend, philosopher and guide. My relationship with her is beyond the traditional guru-shishya relationship. It is something very special that defies description and can only be in the feelings inside my heart.’

As a singer, she has released plenty of musical albums, all of which are appreciated, by the Robindro-Shongeet lovers in both Bangladesh and India. As a performer, she has  traveled almost all the countries, wherever a Bengali Community has formed, and gracefully entertained the minds and hearts of many, by her divine rendition of Tagore songs, with a perfect blend of her own style and fashion without disturbing the original notation and specification, that she learned,  nurtured and preached all through her life. Keeping aside, all the success and recognitions, she received from everywhere she entered, it is “Shurer  Dhara”, the musical school she has opened in 1992, which holds the ultimate and essential significance of the entire journey she had started long before. Originally inspired and advised by Mohordi, as she has attributed, “Shurer Dhara” has the humble ambition to carry out the ‘guru-shishya-parampara’ of shantiniketan style of Robindro-Shongeet, in Bangladesh. Shurer Dhara is not merely a musical school, rather a source for the students of present and the future to not only capture the techniques and the singing grammars of Robindro-Shongeet, but also to realize and consequently actualize the philosophy behind it which has a certain, peaceful and beneficial impact on our earthly existence.

One way to put it is that, Rezwana Choudhury Bannya has found herself in Robindro-Shongeet that has furthered and extended her liberation towards an endless destination. Another way to put it is that, Robindro-Shongeet, in it’s own course, has found Rezwana Chowdhury Bannya, to further it’s journey, from soul to soul, from one generation to another, as hinted by Tagore himself, in the song

“tomar   holo  shuru …..amar  holo  shara…..

tomaay  amaay  mile…emni  bohe  dhara”!

(“It’s here where I perish … and then you begin to glow…

It’s you and I both … to make the river flow”)