The Former Heroes of Jatra

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              "text": "Pathra: Rabin Kumar Majhi (51) and Anukul Ghosh (63) pose as a newly married couple. Ghosh used to play female characters in the 1970s and 1980s. He has now retired from Jatra.",
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              "text": "©Soumya Sankar Bose. Jatra Series / Image courtesy Goa Photo",
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              "text": "Kharagpur: Amar Dey (58) poses as a British official, a character he played several times in a patriotic Jatra play. He performed the role so well that a spectator once mistook him for a real British official and attacked him.",
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          "content": [
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              "text": "Midnapore: Tonu Dey (73), a three-time award winner for best actor in the 1960s and 1970s, poses as a physically handicapped man. He discontinued his artistic career after undergoing bypass surgery in 2005.",
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          "content": [
            {
              "text": "Ghatal: Kanhai Bangor (66), a farmer by profession but famous for his character Vivek (Conscience).",
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              "text": "Kolkata: Sima Bose used to be a famous Jatra artist in the 1960s and 1970s. For the last ten years she has suffered from arthritis and cannot leave her bed.",
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          "content": [
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              "text": "©Soumya Sankar Bose. Jatra Series / Image courtesy Goa Photo",
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              "text": "Sashon: Amar Banerjee (83) is a senior guitar artist who used to play negative characters in the 1950s and 1960s.",
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              "text": "©Soumya Sankar Bose. Jatra Series / Image courtesy Goa Photo",
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          "content": [
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              "text": "Kharagpur: Dihirendra Nath Dihidar (75) retired from Jatra more than twenty-five years ago. He poses here as Asgar Ali with his grand son.",
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              "text": "©Soumya Sankar Bose. Jatra Series / Image courtesy Goa Photo",
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            {
              "text": "Gambhira Nagar: Pradip Kumar Pal (59) is famous for his performances as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. He now runs a stationery shop.",
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              "text": "©Soumya Sankar Bose. Jatra Series / Image courtesy Goa Photo",
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Jatra, the folk theatre form once popular in eastern India, dates back to the sixteenth century. It combined a melodramatic style of acting with popular music that was played before the play commenced to attract a crowd, and then interspersed liberally within the play along with dance numbers. Performances in this form tended to run for nearly four hours, and took place on makeshift wooden platforms without barriers between the audience and the performers. Like film actors of today, Jatra performers had large fan bases too.

The advent of cinema halls and television in the area in the 1960s and 1970s gradually extinguished interest in this performance art. Photographer Soumya Sankar Bose’s uncle was a Jatra actor who had to take up employment at a railway factory as interest in his form continued to wane. This prompted Bose to begin his ongoing Jatra series, which features his uncle’s former cast mates and offers a rare glimpse into the form and its once gigantic figures.

Soumya Sankar Bose's Yatra series will be on display at the upcoming Goa Photo festival (www.goaphoto.in).