Woman Scream 2016 Kolkata India

The sixth Woman Scream International Poetry and Arts Festival 2016 coordinated by Women Poets International Movement president Jael Uribe from Dominican Republic saw for the first time a chapter being held in the city of Kolkata organized by Rhythm Divine Poets in association with Art Fair. The Kolkata event was held on 26^th March at Berlia House in Mandeville Gardens. It brought together women poets and artists as well as men who expressed themselves on issues related to women through poetry, painting and music.

Sufia Khatoon the curator of Art Fair and the co-founder of Rhythm Divine Poets group along with her team of budding artists primarily from Modern High School for Girls, which included Himadri Agarwal, whose parents were the gracious venue partner of the programme, put up a fantastic display of more than a hundred kites with quotes that highlighted the issue of violence on women.

The programme was inaugurated by eminent poets and academicians Prof. Sanjukta Dasgupta and Prof. Sharmila Ray along with the noted singer Somali Panda and renowned fashion designer Sumita Banerjee.

This was Rhythm Divine Poets group’s second international event after the 100 Thousand Poets for Change event last year in September. March being the women’s month it was appropriate to organize such an event in Kolkata, which is the literary and cultural capital of India. The programme for the evening comprised of exhibition of paintings and photography on the theme of women by budding as well as experienced artists, the cover reveal of Words Surfacing online magazine by Kushal Poddar and Pragya Goel Gupta, poetry recitation by guest poets which included Sanjukta Dasgupta and Sharmila Ray, dance by two students of Modern High School for Girls and DPS (Ruby Park), songs by Somali Panda and Samrat Dey, a special collaborative poetry recitation by Sana Mohammed, Amit Shankar Saha, Kushal Poddar and Sufia Khatoon, a street theatre performance by Siddharth Agarwal, musical band performance by Kolkata Music Diaries and open mic poetry on women. It was a mesmerizing evening raising awareness about violence against women and other related issues through the medium of art in its various forms.

Before the inauguration there was a brief introduction about the co-sponsors Incredible Women of India e-zine by Rhiti Bose through a voice message and Manya Education and Princeton Review by Anindita Bose, who also happened to be one of the co-founders of Rhythm Divine Poets. The event saw enthusiastic partnerships from various other organizations which included print partners Admakers and Sibco Overseas Pvt. Ltd., print media partner News Beat, radio partner 94.3FM Radio One, web media partner Calcalling, online media partners Learning and Creativity and Being Bookworms, gift partners Readomania, and other associates like Words Surfacing, Hamari Sanskriti and Ahava Communications.

The programme, apart from the open mic sessions, was anchored elegantly by Mona Sengupta in her inimitable style. The recitations by the guest poets were the major attraction. The audience too enjoyed the melodious songs and music which included an amalgamation of Rabindra Sangeet, Qawali, Fusion and Western Rock. The open mic poetry, which was ably anchored by Anindita Bose and Mohit Jain, saw participation from a large number of city poets. The audience thoroughly enjoyed the performances and appreciated the poetry and art works on display. In the end Rhythm Divine Poets’ co-founder Amit Shankar Saha proposed the vote of thanks.