Event commemorating 1981 Odia movie ’Batasi Jhada’ held in Bhubaneswar

Bhubaneswar: A special event commemorating the Odia movie ’Batasi Jhada’, which was released in 1981, was held at Gita Govinda Sadan in Bhubaneswar.

At the special programme, ’Batasi Jhada Smruti Utsava’, the production house of the movie Star Films launched the songs of the movie

The songs were recreated as the movie’s print has been destroyed and the negative is also not available. The production house has re-recorded the songs with Bibhu Kishore, Pami, Satyajeet, Amrita, Aseema, and Bishnu Mohan.

However, Star Films is trying to somehow recover the only resource from a Video Home System (VHS) cassette. In the first phase, efforts were made to recreate its melodious songs, informed sources.

The event was attended by former Deputy Speaker and Minister Bibhuti Bhusan Singh Mardaraj, actor and former MP Siddhanta Mahapatra, former MLA Siddharth Sekhar Singh, social workers Namrata Chadha, Mrunalini Padhi, and cine critic & National Film Award nominee Surya Deo. The event was organized with the efforts of Deo.

Producer Arati Mohanty, actress Pinky Pradhan, and Jyoti Mishra were also present at the programme and honored the artists associated with ’Batasi Jhada’. Artists associated with the remake of ‘Batasi Jhada’ movie and songs were also felicitated.

In the event, the title card of the recovered film was displayed and a booklet having the details of the movie was also launched.

Produced by Arati Mohanty under the banner of Star Films and helmed by Ramesh Mohanty, ’Batasi Jhada’ was released in 1981. The songs of the movie were written by renowned songwriter Salil Chowdhury, composed by Atul Mahakud and Ramesh Jena, and sung by popular singers K. J. Yesudas, Hemlata, Sabita Chowdhury, and Md. Sikandar Alam. But the film has not been shown in any medium for the last 25 years.