The small wonder from Northeast

Ratnadeep Choudhury

People have started calling her 'Small Wonder' in Orissa and in Cuttack, where she now resides, she is a household name. But Northeast has every reason to feel proud of her. She is Sulagna Bhattacharya, a tiny tot, who has parental roots in Northeastern state of Tripura.
This little champ has already established her name in the dancing circuit of the culturally pulsating costal state of Orissa, that too at a tender age of eleven. Sulagna is not only a profound Oddissi dancer, she is equally trained in Modern dance, much to the amusement of her mother Shomani Bhattacharya, already a commended dancer from Agartala and settled in Cuttack after her marriage with Sujit Bhattachayra, a businessmen.
Shomani had a long cherished dream to make a name for herself in the region, but family hassles came on her way and she had to discontinue her career in dancing. "Then I decided that I would try to curve my daughter into a good dancer," says an elated Shomani, now a proud mother.
Sulagna had her first stage recital at the age of four and drew the attention of the crowd on the very first day of her dancing career. Success was with her on every step. Now a student of Class seven, St. Joseph's Convent School, Sulagna is a 'busy kid'. Her schedules remain packed up with stage shows, TV programmes and commercial ad-films.
She performed more than fifty stage shows in different cities in India both in modern and Oddissi style. She came to limelight after winning a dance competition - Boom Boom Shaka Laka aired by ETV Oriya. Later she became a household name in Orissa when she won the 1 - 2 cha cha cha, yet another dance competition which set the enter Orissa rocking. She went on to win Oye-Oye, another dance event of Oriya channel of Doordarshan. She has also acted in numerous Oriya album and TV ads.
"We attribute her success to her Guru Raghunath Dutta, a Presidential award winner," her father Sujit Bhattacharya told The Northeast Today over phone. Sujit takes care of the fact that Sulagna's studies are in no way hampered.
"I gave her the initial lessons and then she went to Gururji, but I feel that in her initial days, the emphatic cultural atmosphere that she got in Northeast has played a pivotal role in molding her into a good dancer at a tender age," sayd Shomani.
Her fame in dancing also opened the door for Television world and this wonder kid again showed her excellence in her chosen field. She made her presence felt in her debut album Kunni Thakuro, directed by famous Oriya director Bobby Islam. That followed by Mitha Mitha Hasso.
This little girl of course had very little to say "I just want to perform as I am doing right now and I also want to perform at Agartala and in rest of Northeast."
She says: "I am proud of being from Northeast .I want to make my state (Orrissa) and my ancestral state (Tripura) proud as Zubeen Garg (who has made not only Assam proud, but the entire Northeast".