Sprouting of green shoots in the Bishnupriya Manipuri art and culture

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By Pratibha Sinha, Guwahati, Assam

Bishnupriya Manipuri is a rich community. It is enriched with art and culture, music and literature, and immense talent. Due to its scattered population and political reasons, the community is still struggling to expose its identity before the society and the world as well. However, with its rich culture and beliefs, we Bishnupriya Manipuris are always brave to face the challenging world and are trying to establish a strong identity for the future.

From my childhood I have heard about many talented Bishnupriya Manipuri personalities and artists from my parents, relatives and friends but I have hardly seen them personally or had read about them and their profiles in books, published magazines etc. except few of them in special functions or occasions. Sometimes, I came to know about some of them in the magazines published in Bishnupriya Manipuri language. But is it sufficient for a talented person to expose his/her talent in a ‘space’ once in blue moon? We can see how the renowned artists are getting good opportunities to expose their art of talent and collecting support from the society & their fans as well as their ability to create a good platform to sustain for a long period.

The truth is that though our community is enriched with talented artists but they are not getting the opportunities to explore their talent in the society which is spreading widely. Even they are hardly encouraged to continue further with their art as a profession or getting opportunities and facilities in the field to sustain successfully. With the passage of time such artists fail to get attention from the society and their talents get hidden within their other own limitations of life.

But time has brought many changes and the culture of Bishnupriya Manipuri is crossing the geographical areas too. Here, I want to refer specially the growing interest in Bishnupriya Manipuri music and the blooming artists of music coming up with new art of talents and adding pride to the community. The success of good artists depends on the society and their fans. Such talented artists & their talent need to be encouraged, projected and promoted to excel in their field. Finally, we can see the green shoots of talented artists are sprouting up and they are scaling new heights.