Mahisasuramardini (radio programme)

Mahishasuramarddini is a widely popular early Bengali special dawn radio programme that has been broadcasting since 1931 on All India Radio (AIR) in Indian state West Bengal. Due to its increasing popularity, now-a-days it is also broadcast by many other stations of All India Radio across India. It is a one-and-a-half-hour audio montage of Chaṇḍipāaṭh (chanting from Chaṇḍi) recitation from the scriptural verses of Śrī Śrī Chaṇḍi or Durga Saptashati, Bengali devotional songs, classical music and a dash of acoustic melodrama. The program has been translated into Hindi set to similar orchestration and is broadcast at the same time for a pan-Indian audience. This programme is aired every year at day-break on Mahalaya. The programme, which started off as a live-performance, has been broadcast in its pre-recorded format since 1966. However, its great popularity remains undiminished even today over 93 years later.

This program has become synonymous with Mahalaya which is celebrated to usher the Devipaksha lunar fortnight and the Durga Puja. To this day, most of Bengal and East India fond of the programme wakes up in the breezily pre dawn hours, 4 am to be precise, on the Mahalaya day to tune into the Mahishasuramarddini broadcast. Presently, one of the recordings are available as audio cassettes and Compact Disks from His Master's Voice-RPG which has obtained the rights from All India Radio. The CD version (as of 2002) contains 19 tracks.