Let’s Sing an Old Song – Soumya Sankar Bose

Soumya Sankar Bose began photographing artistes who are now unemployed but were once gigantic figures of the Jatra – a folk theatre form in India. This work is based mainly on the Jatra artists, characters played by them, and the psychology that drives them to be a part of this folk cult form.

Dating back to the 16th century, the Jatra is a famous folk theatre form of united Bengal (Bangladesh and West Bengal), employing dialog, monolog, songs, and instrumental music to tell stories. Jatra pala, as the plays are called, are enacted on wooden stages without barriers between the actors and the audience – facilitating direct communication. The plots vary from Indian mythology and historical incidents to something more contemporary and based on social issues. The partition of India had a major impact on Jatra as artistes in the newly formed East-Pakistan (later Bangladesh), a Muslim majority country, which discontinued the enactment of Hindu religious folktales such as Krishna lila, Devi thakurani, kongso bodh, kaliadaman etc. On the other side of the border, artistes in west Bengal stopped playing Muslim characters such as Siraj-ud-dullah, Shah jahan, Akbar etc. The advent of cinema and TV in the 1960s and 1970s blew a deadly blow to the theatre art form. In 2013, over 600 Jatra companies employ more than 2,00,000 people, but their situation has forced them to often offer free performances.

This hard bound book comes in its own box, with several tactile elements. It measures 28.5 x 10.8cm, and is 120 pages in length.

Artist / Author

Concept and images by Soumya Sankar Bose, with book design is by Barnali Bose, flip book by Suchana Saha, and text by Kushanava Choudhury. Learn more about Soumya Sankar Bose’s artistic practice on his website and on his profile page on PhotoSouthAsia.

Sourced / excerpted from this artist’s website. (2022).