The Voice Before Dawn

October 10, 2026

India approaches Durga Puja and Navratri in a climate of heightened political argument, institutional distrust and public unease. In such moments, it is important to distinguish evidence-based democratic criticism from unverified claims of conspiracies or “dark forces”; a healthy republic requires vigilance without surrendering to fear, rumour or hatred.

Yet the season’s symbolism remains deeply resonant. Evil does not always announce itself with grandeur. It can resemble cockroaches: creatures of darkness that thrive amid neglect, decay and silence. Whether the threat is corruption, cruelty, manipulation, communal hostility or the weakening of public trust, the response must be neither panic nor vengeance, but illumination—truth, constitutional courage, compassion and accountability.

Durga’s victory over Mahishasura reminds us that the struggle between good and evil is also an inward one. The triumph of dharma lies not in amplifying anger, but in refusing to become what we oppose. This festive season, may we find the clarity to expose falsehood, the strength to resist injustice and the grace to keep faith with humanity.

Against this unsettled public mood, the essay that follows returns to Mahishasuramardini—not as a political slogan, but as a profound cultural meditation on vigilance, courage, moral clarity and the enduring possibility that light can overcome darkness. The Mahalaya broadcast has long marked Durga’s arrival for Bengali listeners, linking the goddess’s victory over Mahishasura with the beginning of Durga Puja.

Before the goddess appears in a pandal, she arrives as sound.

A conch breaks the pre-dawn silence. An invocation gathers force. Then comes a voice—commanding, intimate, unmistakable—that announces the approach of Mahalaya. For generations of Bengali listeners, this has been the emotional threshold of Durga Puja. Mahishasuramardini is not merely a radio broadcast: it is an annual ritual in which devotion, music, memory and anticipation converge.

The celebrated reciter was Birendra Krishna Bhadra. Yet it is equally limiting to describe the programme simply as “Bhadra’s Mahishasuramardini.” The work emerged from an exceptional artistic partnership. Bani Kumar shaped the literary conception and script; Pankaj Kumar Mullick gave the composition its enduring musical architecture; and Birendra Krishna Bhadra supplied the narration and Sanskrit recitation that made the work inseparable from his voice. Around them stood generations of vocalists, instrumentalists, sound personnel, producers and broadcasters.

Their achievement was remarkable: they translated a sacred narrative into the intimate modern medium of radio. The programme entered thousands of homes at once, yet often seemed to address each listener personally.

The title Mahishasuramardini means “the slayer of Mahishasura,” the buffalo demon. Its principal scriptural basis lies in the Devi Mahatmya, also called the Durga Saptashati or Chandi, a major section of the Markandeya Purana.

The radio composition is not a complete recitation of the approximately seven hundred verses of the Devi Mahatmya. Instead, it is a highly crafted arrangement of Sanskrit passages, Bengali narration, devotional songs, choruses and instrumental interludes. It selects, condenses and reorders sacred material to produce dramatic continuity for the ear.

The text’s frame is more human and philosophical than the popular image of a goddess slaying a demon might suggest. A dispossessed king, Suratha, and a merchant, Samadhi, approach the sage Medhas. Both remain emotionally attached to people and circumstances that have caused them suffering. Their predicament raises a larger question: why do human beings cling to that which wounds them, and what power may release them from ignorance and grief?

The sage answers through stories of the goddess. The conflict with Mahishasura is therefore not simply an episode of cosmic warfare. It is part of an inquiry into delusion, attachment, power and liberation.

In the central narrative, the gods have been defeated by Mahishasura and deprived of their authority. Their collective radiance converges into the form of the goddess. Each deity contributes an aspect of divine force or a weapon: Shiva offers the trident, Vishnu the discus, and other gods supply their characteristic powers. Himalaya gives her a lion.

The symbolism is significant. Strength that had been dispersed and defeated is gathered into a single feminine divine presence. The goddess does not merely act on behalf of the gods; in Shakta thought, she embodies the power upon which even the gods depend.

Mahishasura is dangerous not only because he is strong, but because he is unstable. He changes form and resists definition. In the confrontation, the goddess subdues him in his buffalo form and destroys him as he emerges from it. The story gives visible form to a power that disguises itself continually—and to the clarity capable of recognising and overcoming it.

Theological readings of this episode go beyond the simple formula of “good defeating evil.” The goddess is understood as Shakti: the active, creative and transformative power through which the universe acts. She is not merely an instrument in a divine hierarchy. She is the ground of its energy.

Bengali Durga Puja holds two powerful images together.

One is the goddess as Mahishasuramardini: awe-inspiring, armed, sovereign and victorious. The other is Durga as Uma: the beloved daughter who returns to her parental home in autumn. One image belongs to cosmic conflict; the other to domestic affection and seasonal homecoming.

Mahishasuramardini derives much of its emotional force from this coexistence. The warrior who protects the universe is also welcomed as a daughter. Grandeur is never far from tenderness; invocation is never wholly separated from longing.

It is often said that Mahishasuramardini “began in 1931.” That statement is useful only if treated as shorthand. The programme did not emerge fully formed in a single year, nor did it remain unchanged thereafter.

Its history is better understood as a process of development within Calcutta radio during the early 1930s. There were earlier devotional broadcasts, seasonal experiments and related productions. Accounts associated with Bani Kumar’s recollections identify Basanteswari as an important precursor and describe the gradual movement toward an autumnal devotional programme. In subsequent years, the script, musical material and broadcast identity were revised and consolidated.

By the later 1930s, the work had acquired the recognisable form and title by which it came to be known. The exact chronology of particular early broadcasts remains difficult to establish with complete certainty, partly because later recollections, commemorative accounts and archival references do not always agree. What is beyond doubt is that the classic was shaped through repeated experimentation rather than born as a finished monument.

This history matters. Mahishasuramardini became timeless only because it was once a work in motion.

Bani Kumar’s achievement was literary and dramatic. He had to select from a vast sacred text, establish narrative movement, introduce Bengali explanation and devotional poetry, and sustain the attention of listeners who could not see a stage or follow printed pages.

Pankaj Kumar Mullick’s contribution was equally structural. The programme moves between narration, Sanskrit recitation, solo song, chorus and instrumental passages without losing continuity. That coherence is musical as much as literary. Mullick’s work gave the composition a sense of progression: solemnity gives way to expectancy; conflict to invocation; grandeur to tenderness.

Birendra Krishna Bhadra held these elements together through voice. He did not merely pronounce the text. He explained, invoked, intensified and reassured. His recitation carried listeners between the Bengali narrative world and the ceremonial authority of Sanskrit verse.

Other musicians also contributed to the work’s formation. Accounts of its early musical history mention figures such as Raichand Boral and Pandit Harishchandra Bali, among others, while particular songs and arrangements have their own histories of composition, adaptation and performance. It is therefore misleading to imagine the score as the creation of a single individual in isolation, even while recognising Mullick’s central role in shaping its lasting musical identity.

The programme was initially performed live. This required extraordinary coordination among reciters, soloists, chorus singers and instrumentalists. A hesitation, a missed cue or a flawed phrase could not simply be edited out. The ease listeners later came to associate with the broadcast was the result of rehearsal, discipline and repeated artistic refinement.

The recording history is similarly more complex than popular memory often suggests. Several archival recordings and broadcast versions survive from different periods. Former All India Radio personnel have recalled recordings from the 1960s and early 1970s, while commercial releases familiar to later listeners were often edited or assembled from particular sessions.

This is why it is hazardous to speak of a single, eternally fixed “original recording.” The programme has had versions. Songs have appeared, disappeared or shifted in different broadcasts. What many listeners remember as a stable canon is, in fact, the result of decades of selection, repetition and recording practice.

The sound of Mahishasuramardini is the product of several musical traditions meeting within radio.

Its Sanskrit verses draw upon the authority and cadence of sacred recitation. Its Bengali songs belong to a devotional culture in which the goddess may be addressed with longing, intimacy, urgency and surrender. Its melodic language draws deeply on Hindustani musical idioms, though its songs are not simply extended classical raga performances.

Its instrumental palette reflects the musical cosmopolitanism of twentieth-century Calcutta. Indian instruments could coexist with harmonium, sarangi, esraj and percussion, while violin, cello, piano, mandolin, guitar and other orchestral resources expanded the programme’s tonal range. The result was neither purely classical, nor merely popular, nor conventionally theatrical. It was a distinct broadcast sound: devotional in purpose, dramatic in structure and modern in medium.

The term oratorio is sometimes used to describe the work. The comparison is useful insofar as it identifies a large-scale musical narrative carried by voices and instruments without requiring staged action. Yet the work’s roots remain firmly Indian—in Shakta theology, Bengali devotional culture, Sanskrit recitation and the sound world of All India Radio.

The dramatic intelligence of Mahishasuramardini lies in its alternation of forms.

Narration tells the story. Sanskrit recitation gives events ritual gravity. Solo songs allow personal feeling to emerge. Choruses enlarge individual emotion into collective prayer. Instrumental passages carry the listener from one state to another.

The programme therefore functions not as a sequence of unrelated devotional songs, but as an emotional journey. It moves through apprehension, wonder, invocation, conflict, triumph and reassurance. The goddess is encountered in multiple relationships: as cosmic force, warrior, mother, daughter and refuge.

Songs such as “Bajlo Tomar Alor Benu” reveal its gentler register. The image of a flute of light transforms the goddess’s arrival into something that seems to enter the listener’s immediate world. Other numbers, including invocations associated with awakening and praise, create urgency or awe. Their effect lies not simply in melody but in placement: each song appears at a particular emotional point in the larger design.

The chorus is especially important. It creates a public dimension within private listening. Someone sitting alone beside a radio can feel included in a collective act of prayer. Radio turns physical separation into shared experience.

Birendra Krishna Bhadra’s contribution cannot be reduced to diction or familiarity.

His voice occupied a space between speech and music. Pitch, stress, breath, pace and pause gave the words physical shape. A consonant could strike with force; a pause could create suspense; the rise and fall of a phrase could make the listener feel meaning even before every word was understood.

The movement between Bengali narration and Sanskrit verse altered the listener’s relationship to the work. Bengali explanation offered narrative access. Sanskrit recitation summoned a different attention—ceremonial, sonic and devotional.

This is one reason the programme has moved listeners across linguistic and generational boundaries. A child may grasp its emotional architecture long before understanding its mythology. An adult may return to it decades later and discover meanings previously unnoticed. Familiar phrases accumulate new associations through family memory, religious practice, music and loss.

Bhadra’s voice carries two histories at once: the sacred story being told, and the history of the homes in which it has been heard.

In 1976, All India Radio attempted to replace the familiar Mahalaya broadcast with a new programme, commonly remembered as Devi Durgatiharini. It featured music by Hemanta Mukhopadhyay and narration associated with Uttam Kumar.

The response from listeners was intense. The older programme soon returned to its established place.

The significance of this episode should not be reduced to a simplistic contest between celebrated performers. By that point, Mahishasuramardini had become part of an annual ritual. Its sound was linked to previous Mahalayas, family gatherings, early mornings and the emotional beginning of Puja. Replacing it seemed to interrupt a continuity that had come to feel indispensable.

There is a revealing paradox here. The classic itself had emerged through revision and experiment. Yet once its familiar form entered collective memory, listeners came to defend that form with exceptional force.

There is no reliable, representative survey that can tell us exactly how different age groups understand or value Mahishasuramardini. It would therefore be unwise to claim either that younger listeners have abandoned it or that they encounter it in precisely the same way as earlier generations.

What can be said is that the work continues to circulate across radio, recordings, television, streaming platforms, social media and live cultural presentations. Individual songs now travel independently of the full composition. A listener abroad can hear the broadcast without depending on local radio; a newcomer can replay a difficult passage; a family can encounter a familiar song in a new recording.

But digital access also changes the nature of listening. Hearing a celebrated song in isolation is not the same as following the entire composition before dawn. The programme’s cumulative movement—its transitions between voice, verse, song, chorus and silence—can be lost when it is reduced to brief clips or playlists.

The task, therefore, is not merely preservation. It is interpretation.

A younger listener may recognise Bhadra’s voice and know that Puja has begun. Another may know the story of Mahishasura. A third may understand the Sanskrit verses, Shakta theology and musical organisation. These are different forms of engagement, and all can be meaningful. Yet the deepest continuity will come when emotional recognition is joined by access to meaning.

The most valuable way to transmit Mahishasuramardini is not to freeze it into untouchable nostalgia. It is to preserve the original performance while making its world more intelligible.

Useful forms of support include:

- Accurate archival notes identifying the recording or broadcast version being heard.

- Readable translations of the Sanskrit and Bengali passages.

- Brief explanations of the narrative sequence and theological context.

- Musical notes that clarify the dramatic role of important songs and instrumental passages.

- Opportunities for collective listening in homes, schools, cultural institutions and digital communities.

- New artistic interpretations that respect the classic without pretending to replace it.

The goddess’s power also invites contemporary reflection. Durga’s independence, authority and self-sufficiency can speak meaningfully to questions of women’s agency. At the same time, any celebration of divine femininity must remain alert to the gap between reverence for the goddess and the lived treatment of women.

A complete understanding must also acknowledge that the Durga–Mahishasura narrative is not received uniformly by every community. Alternative Dalit and Adivasi readings exist alongside the dominant Bengali devotional tradition. Recognising these differences does not diminish the programme’s cultural significance; it makes the history of its reception more honest and more complete.

Mahishasuramardini survives because several artistic achievements reinforce one another.

Its script makes sacred narrative dramatically accessible. Its music moves between majesty and intimacy. Its chorus creates collective feeling. Its recordings preserve a vanished broadcast culture. And Bhadra’s voice gives the entire construction continuity.

Annual repetition binds the work to the season. Family listening binds it to individual lives. The sound heard before dawn becomes inseparable from the expectation of Puja, the memory of elders, the return of absent people and the sense that autumn has truly begun.

Its deepest lesson may be that inherited authority is often made through patient artistic labour. Writers revised. Musicians experimented. Singers changed. Broadcasts evolved. Recordings reshaped a live tradition. What now seems immovable was built through collaboration, rehearsal and time.

Before dawn, Mahishasuramardini still offers an unusually concentrated experience: sound, anticipation, memory and devotion held together in a single ritual of listening. Its future will be richest when the thrill of recognition is joined by the pleasure of understanding.

B Hari

Simplicity with substance
www.bhari.com