PANDU, Dec 28 � Eka Ebong Koekjan, the popular little Bengali magazine of Assam celebrated its 31st year of fruitful existence on December 26 at the Machkhowa ITA Centre, Guwahati through a colourful cultural and musical extravaganza.
The function commenced with a welcome address delivered by Shyamal Biswas, one of the founder members of the little magazine group in which he deliberated on the trials and tribulatious faced by them in making the magazine survive for long 31 years. This was followed by the traditional programme of according felicitation to two reputed writers of the State, namely Debabrata Das and Dipankar Kar, both excelling in the field of story- writing. They were each presented a shawl, a citation and a bouqet on behalf of the magazine group.
The second session received a boost by the presence of Dr Lakshminandan Bora, celebrated litterateur and former president of Asam Sahitya Sabha, who released the annual version of the magazine Eka Ebong Koekjan which dwells this time exclusively on Srimanta Sankardev and his contribution to the cultural, social and literary enrichment of Assam. In his illuminating speech Dr Bora outlined the greatness of Srimanta Sankardev and lauded the magazine for doing an excellent job in effecting integration of the different communities and languages.
He recalled his close association with the stalwarts of Bengali literature and how he was greatly influenced by Tarasankar Bandopadhyay, the great Bengali novelist. He felt that Rabindranath Tagore did exactly what Srimanta Sankardev did in the field of literature, enriching it through its different genres.
In the third and concluding session, Srikanta Acharjee, the popular and talented singer of Bengal regaled the large audience by presenting in his mellifluous voice a good number of Rabindra Sangeet, modern song, ghazal etc. The show was conducted by Gautam Bhattacharya.
