3623 SÁTAT́I CÁMPÁ D́EKE BOLE KOTHÁY CHILI TUI PÁRUL
Saat Bhai Champa or Sat Bhai Chompa (The Seven Magnolia Brothers) is a popular folk tale in the Bengal region of South Asia. The story was first officially published by Dakshinaranjan Mitra Majumder in the book Thakurmar Jhuli in 1907. The introduction to Thakurmar Jhuli was written by Nobel-Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore. A more detailed version of the story was published by Bishnu Dey under the name Saat Bhai Champa in 1944. Several Bengali movies were made based on the Saat Bhai Champa story. The Sat Bhai Chompa (1968) film is ranked by the British Film Institute as one of the top ten Bangladeshi films of all time.
Plot
Once upon a time, there lived a king. As none of his three queens were able to produce an heir to the throne, the king became depressed, and spent much of his time alone in the forest. On seeing the king's misery, a sage in the forest took pity on him and gave him three magical mangoes. The sage instructed the king to feed the fruit to his wives so that they would be able to conceive. The king duly gave his three wives the mangoes to eat. However, the two elder queens did not produce any children, as they ate the fruit without any faith in their magical powers. However, the youngest queen gave birth to octuplets: seven boys and one girl, while the king was on a voyage. The elder queens became jealous and buried the babies in the garden before the younger queen gained consciousness after giving birth. The babies magically blossomed into seven champak (gardenia) flowers and a trumpet flower. The last baby, a girl, was born some time after the first seven babies, when the elder queens had just left the room with the seven baby boys. This enabled the maid to hide the baby girl from the elder queens, and named her Champa. The elder queens then placed seven puppies at the younger queen's bedside and claimed she had given birth to seven puppies instead of babies. Champa grew up in the forest. After learning her true origin from her maid, she helped to revive her brothers, who became transformed back into princes.
Sat Bhai Chompa 1968
This film was made in East Pakistan, which is now Bangladesh. The director of the movie was Dilip Shom and main actors were Kabori and Khan Ataur Rehman. The movie is ranked by the British Film Institute as one of the top ten Bangladeshi film of all time.
Arts
The Saat Bhai Champa painting by Gaganendranath Tagore is considered a masterpiece of contemporary Indian painting. It is currently located at the Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata.