AssamExam

The Kohinoor Theatre was the first mobile theatre group of Assam, founded by Natyacharya Brajanath Sarma, in 1930. Kohinoor Opera performed dramas, attracting thousands of spectators, from Dhubri to Sadiya. The first Mobile Theatre play was staged on 2 October 1963, in Pathsala.

Achyut Lahkar was the father of the Bhryamyman or Mobile theatre and gave birth to mobile theatre in Assam in the 1960s. He founded the popular Natraj Theatre at Pathsala in 1963 which performed across Assam and in other states for nearly 40 years. He also published and edited an illustrated magazine called Deepawali for some time. He was awarded the Kamal Kumari National Award in 1997.

Me-Dam-Me-Phi is the most important Ancestor worship communal festival in the Ahom religion celebrated by the Ahom people on 31 January every year in memory of the departed. It is the manifestation of the concept of ancestor worship that the Ahoms share with other peoples originating from the Tai stock. It is a festival to show respect to the departed ancestors and remember their contribution to society.

Bhaona is a traditional form of entertainment, with religious messages, prevalent is Assam, India. It is a creation of Mahapurusha Srimanta Sankardeva, written in the early sixteenth century. He created the form to convey religious messages to villagers through entertainment. The plays of bhaona are popularly known as Ankiya Nats and their staging is known as bhaona.

Kaviraja Madhava Kandali was an Indian poet from the state of Assam. His Saptakanda Ramayana is considered the earliest translation of the Ramayana into an Indo-Aryan language, Assamese. Another significant work of his is the narrative poem Devajit, which is about superiority of Krishna over the other avatars of Vishnu.

Mahamanikya was a Borahi-Kachari king who ruled parts of Assam in the 14th-15th century. At the time, his kingdom centered on present-day Nagaon, Morigoan and Hojai districts. Under his patronage, the Sanskrit epic Ramayana was translated to Assamese verse Saptakanda Ramayana by Madhava Kandali.

Orunodoi was the first Assamese magazine, printed by the Baptist Missionary Press in Sibsagar; it was first published in January 1846.

The origins of Assamese cinema can be traced back to Rupkonwar Jyotiprasad Agarwala, who was also a noted poet, playwright, composer and freedom fighter. He was instrumental in the production of the first Assamese Film Joymati in 1935, under the banner of Chitralekha Movietone.

The most significant and a landmark development in the cultural life of Assam was the establishment of the Baan theatre, the first modern Assamese theatre hall at Tezpur in 1906. The Baan Stage gave a platform for development of the Socio-Cultural scene of Assam. The great cultural trio Rupkonwar Jyoti Prasad Agarwala, Kalaguru Bishnu Prasad Rabha and Nata Surya Phani Sarma blossomed there.

The Hastividyārnava, written by Sukumar Barkaith, is one of the best known illustrated manuscripts of Assam. Commissioned under the patronage of King Siva Singha and his queen consort Phuleshwari, it deals with the management and care of elephants in the royal stables. The Hastividyārnava is a work that arose in a matrix of disciplined study, prolonged observation and a precedent tradition. The commission of such a treatise was perhaps considered important as the elephant played an important role in affirming the idea of monarchy and exercising state power.