Bengali music comprises a long tradition of religious and secular song-writing over a period of almost a millennium. Composed with lyrics in the Bengali language, Bengali music spans a wide variety of styles.
Mahasweta Devi was an Indian writer in Bengali and an activist. Her notable literary works include Hajar Churashir Maa, Rudali, and Aranyer Adhikar. She was a leftist who worked for the rights and empowerment of the tribal people of West Bengal, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh states of India. She was honoured with various literary awards such as the Sahitya Akademi Award, Jnanpith Award and Ramon Magsaysay Award along with India's civilian awards Padma Shri and Padma Vibhushan.
Rituparna Sengupta is an Indian actress and producer who is known for her work in Bengali cinema and Hindi cinema. One of the most successful actresses of Bengali cinema, she rode the crest of her box office success in the late 1990s. She won a National Award, two Filmfare Awards, four BFJA Awards and four Anandalok Awards.
Paschimbanga Bangla Akademi is the official regulatory body of the Bengali language in West Bengal, India. Modeled after Bangla Academy of Bangladesh and France's Académie française, the Bangla Akademi was founded on 20 May 1986 in Kolkata to act as the official authority of the language and is entrusted with the responsibility of reforming Bengali spelling and grammar, compiling dictionaries, encyclopedias and terminologies and promoting Bengali language and culture in West Bengal. Though the Akademi has no enforcement power over their rules and regulations, yet they are widely accepted by the Governments of West Bengal and Tripura as well as a considerable number of private publishing houses and institutions like the Oxford University Press and the Ramakrishna Mission.
Several fiction, non-fiction and cinemas were based on Kolkata, or depicted Kolkata from certain point of views. Some of such works are listed here.
Rupam Islam is an Indian Bengali singer, songwriter, music composer, writer and humanist. He is the lead vocalist of the popular Bengali Rock Band Fossils. He gained popularity mainly through his solo albums and his works as a member of Fossils. He has worked as a playback singer, music director, and lyricist in numerous Bengali films and has also lent his voice for Hindi and Telugu films. He has sung for various Bengali television soaps, web series, and advertisements. In 2010, he won the National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer for his work in the Bengali film Mahanagar@Kolkata. He is a member of the Bangla Sangeet Academy.
Hiran Mitra is an artist based in Kolkata. He left his ancestral country home in Kharagpur to study Fine Art in the Government College of Art & Craft, Kolkata at the age of 14. His paintings are energetic abstract gestural paintings with the choreography of the human body observed from folk dance having influenced his recent calligraphic forms. He has contributed significantly to the visual stimulus in eastern Indian films, television, theatre and literature since in the 1980s [. He is also known to have defined a benchmark for book cover design for contemporary Bengali literature. His paintings are statements on the human condition and the twilight zones of reality and time. Bold brush strokes, layered washes and sprays and unconventional use of acrylic and industrial paints characterize his paintings. He is part of the Open Window Artist group and has been part of the Painters 80 Artist group in Kolkata.
Bappaditya Bandopadhyay or Bappaditya Banerjee was an Indian film director and poet.
Suman Mukhopadhyay is an Indian film director.His popular films are Herbert (film), Kangal Malsat, Shesher Kobita (2014).
Nabarun Bhattacharya was an Indian writer in Bengali language. He was born at Berhampur, West Bengal. He was the only child of actor and playwright Bijon Bhattacharya and writer, activist Mahashweta Devi. His maternal grandfather was the writer from the Kallol era, Manish Ghatak. Visionary filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak was his great uncle.
Herbert is a 2005 Indian Bengali-language drama film directed by veteran theater director Suman Mukhopadhyay. It was based on Nabarun Bhattacharya's 1997 Sahitya Akademi Award winning novel of the same name.
Churni Ganguly is a Bengali actress and director.
Riddhi Sen is an Indian film actor who predominantly works in Bengali films. He is a regular actor of the theatre group Swapnasandhani and is an alumnus of South Point school, Kolkata. In 2010, he received a special talent award from his school for his achievements in the field of theatre. He is the youngest actor in India to receive the National Film Award for Best Actor for his performance in the film Nagarkirtan. In 2019, Film Companion ranked Sen's performance in Nagarkirtan among 100 Greatest Performances of the decade.
Abosheshey is a 2011 Indian film in Bengali starring Roopa Ganguly, Raima Sen and Ankur Khanna in lead roles. The film is the directorial debut of Aditi Roy. The film was screened at various international film festivals and received many accolades. The story is about a son who is trying to learn about his dead mother.
Paanch Adhyay is a 2012 Bengali romantic drama set in Kolkata. The film marks the Bengali language debut for Bollywood actress Dia Mirza. The film is written and directed by Pratim D. Gupta, the resident film critic of The Telegraph newspaper in Kolkata and produced by Kaustuv Roy. The music of the film has been scored by Shantanu Moitra. Besides a successful six-week run in Bengal, Paanch Adhyay was selected as the Centerpiece Premiere at the South Asian International Film Festival in New York and in the New Voice in Indian Cinema section at the Mumbai Film Festival. Paanch Adhyay also won the Best Film Award at the prestigious Kalakar Awards.
Kangal Malsat is a Bengali political satire film directed by Suman Mukhopadhyay and based on the novel of the same name written by Nabarun Bhattacharya. As of February 2013, the Central Board of Film Certification denied approval to the film, citing distortion of history, excessive use of abusive language, sexuality, and the portrayal of social movements in a harmful way. The film got a clearance in the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal in the first week of March 2013. Finally the film is set to be released on 2 August 2013.
Anirban Bhattacharya is an Indian actor, theatre actor, singer and director. His first successful theatre production was Debi Sarpamasta, written by Manoj Mitra, directed by Debesh Chattopadhyay. His other notable works are Anthony Soudamini, Nagamandala, Jara Agun Lagay, Bisorjan, FM Mahanagar, Karu Basana, Awdyo Shesh Rajani, Athoi etc. In 2017, he got the Mahindra Excellence Theatre Awards (META) as Best Actor in a Leading Role (Male) for Awdyo Shesh Rajani. In 2015, he started his film career with the Zee Bangla telefim Kader Kuler Bou. He got fame for his character as Bishan Roy from the film Eagoler Chokh. For playing this role, he was picked up as the Filmfare Awards East for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in 2017. In 2019, He got his first Best Actor Award for the role of Nikhilesh Chowdhury from the movie Ghawre Bairey Aaj which was immensely praised by critics and audiences. He made his directorial debut through the Bengali crime drama web series Mandaar, which is inspired by William Shakespeare's Macbeth.
Bong is a neologism that originated in cosmopolitan India in the 1980s as a slightly pejorative exonym for the educated middle-class Bengalis from the Indian state of West Bengal. In the 21st century, the term became a self-appellation of pride through the use of satire and self-reflexive irony by the Bengali blogging community, which came to stand for West Bengalis as a whole. Bong has been noted as a word of Indian English, used in the Indian newspapers.
Fyataru is a fictional character of Bengali novelist and poet Nabarun Bhattacharya. Fyatarus are lower class flying human beings who like to make chaos in the so-called civil society. These characters are the part of creation of Bhattacharya's Magic realism.
