Dwijendralal Roy [1863-1943] during his lifetime was one of Bengals best known poet-musician-dramatists, and his lyrical songs and comic poetry which captured the imagination of the people were used in historical and social dramas and satires of the period. His songs [called Dwijendra-geeti] combined Western music styles with sophisticated lyrics in Bengali and in doing so marked a breakthrough in the Indian music tradition. Dwijendralal skilfully used historical memory in his plays to highlight values that he considered crucial for the creation of an ideal India nation, based on compassion and integrity. His groundbreaking use of humour and satire to highlight the injustices that bedevilled society in late nineteenth-early twentieth century India won him innumerable admirers. His immense contribution to music and literature notwithstanding, his rich oeuvre has suffered has suffered monumental neglect, and there is an appalling lack of awareness about the man and his work. This volume attempts to put that right by documenting as well as undertaking a serious study of the creative genius of this artist.
Sarvani Gooptu is Professor of Asian Literary and Cultural Studies at the Netaji Institute for Asian Studies, Kolkata. Her main area of research is nationalism and culture in colonial and post-colonial India. She has researched and written on the minority communities of Kolkata, the intellectual and literary history of Bengal and the history of music. Her book The Actress in the Public Theatres of Calcutta was published in 2015. She has co-edited with Ishita Banerjee-Dube On Modern Indian Sensibilities: Culture, Politics, History [2018]. Her current book project Knowing Asia, Being Asian is based on a study of the vernacular journals of Bengal