Join us for February's Third Thursday event where CEE spring Fellows Amitav Ghosh and Ali Sethi discuss their collaboration on a course they are teaching with Penn's own Brooke O'Harra.  Amitav, Ali, and Brooke are leading students in a rigorous process of research, development, and rehearsal, culminating in a public performance of a musical version of Ghosh's newest book Jungle Nama on March 2nd and 3rd (in-person and remote tickets available). 
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The Center for Experimental Ethnography held a stage performance of Amitav Ghosh's adaptation of an episode from the legend of Bon Bibi, titled: "Jungle Nama: A Story of the Sundarban." The performance will take place at the Montgomery Theatre at Penn Live Arts.
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Jungle Nama is Amitav Ghosh's verse adaptation of an episode from the legend of Bon Bibi, a tale popular in the villages of the Sundarban, which also lies at the heart of the novel The Hungry Tide. It is the story of the avaricious rich merchant Dhona, the poor lad Dukhey, and his mother; it is also the story of Dokkhin Rai, a mighty spirit who appears to humans as a tiger, of Bon Bibi, the benign goddess of the forest, and her warrior brother Shah Jongoli. The original print version of this legend, dating back to the nineteenth century, is composed in a Bengali verse meter known as dwipodi poyar. "Jungle-nama" is a free adaptation of the legend, told entirely in a poyar-like meter of twenty-four syllable couplets that replicate the cadence of the original.

Illustration by Salman Toor