An Evening of Poetry, Music, and Emotion: Sujoy Prasad Chatterjee’s ‘JOURNEYS’ Takes Centre Stage at India International Centre

India International Centre hosted an evening of spoken words and live music by acclaimed interdisciplinary artist and actor Sujoy Prasad Chatterjee and musician Shibasish Banerjee. The production titled JOURNEYS, after an extremely successful opening in Kolkata, captures a slice of life that spans Sujoy’s interpersonal dialogue with verses, prose, letters, and of course music. The readings of artistic texts included works of Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Amrita Pritam, Jenai Dalal, Suheir Hammad, Amir Aziz, William Shakespeare, and many other regional poets. Sujoy’s ease and finesse with words and even music were appreciated by the full house audience. His reading of Othello was power-packed, to say the least in the way he wove the voices of the Moore and the heroine. Shibasish sang heart songs like Hallelujah, Imagine, and many others. The famous MAIN TENU FIR MILANGI by Amrita Pritam found a confluence in Sahir Ludhianvi’s immortal lyrics of Kabhie mere dil mein sung by Sujoy on stage. The final act of the evening was a self-composed letter called RAJKUMARER CHITHI (by Sujoy), a treatise on unrequited love between two men. This left many audience members teary-eyed. “JOURNEYS is an assemblage of memories and muse that I lived through for two decades in arts. I hope everyone finds a voice in mine”, signed off Sujoy.