About MoodKolkata

What is MoodKolkata?

MoodKolkata (also written Mood Kolkata, or মুড কলকাতা in Bengali) is a free website where you can listen to more than 3,800 Bengali audio stories and close to 2,000 songs, played from their creators' own YouTube channels. It is made in Kolkata by Advertia Digital, and it also has a Kolkata radio that follows the city's hour and weather, and a blog you can listen to.

We built it for the Bengali listener. On a Sunday evening you still want a Sunday Suspense. The Feluda you heard as a child, you want to hear again. On a rainy morning, it is Rabindra Sangeet you think of. Wherever in the world you are, MoodKolkata is for those moments.

Wherever you are, in Kolkata's mood.

What we want it to be

MoodKolkata wants to be the first place a Bengali opens, anywhere in the world, to hear a story or a song, and the place where the channels and artists who make them find listeners who stay.

What does MoodKolkata do?

The Bengali story channels and music labels publish something new almost every day, and it all lands on YouTube among everything else. MoodKolkata picks out what a Bengali listener comes for and arranges it the way we think of it: the ghost story for a stormy night, the detective story, the love story, the classic. Every Feluda, every Byomkesh and every Taranath sits on its own page. Serials run from the first part to the last, and there is a short story for a cup of tea or a long one for a long journey. Every story and song still plays from its maker's own YouTube video, in YouTube's own player, so the view counts on their channel and the ads are theirs. We copy nothing and upload nothing.

Why listen to Bengali audio stories on MoodKolkata instead of YouTube?

On MoodKolkata the stories are already found, sorted and put in order; on YouTube, the finding is your job. Search "Feluda" or "Sunday Suspense" and the story you wanted arrives among film clips, trailers, reaction videos and several uploads of the same title. Start a serial, and part three is somewhere in the channel, weeks after part two. Here, ghost stories (bhuter golpo) and detective stories each have their own page, and so do Feluda, Byomkesh Bakshi and Taranath Tantrik, with every channel's recordings together. Sunday Suspense from Mirchi Bangla sits beside the other story channels on our stories page. New releases show what the channels have put out lately, and the Top 10 shows what people are listening to now.

What more do you get with every story on MoodKolkata?

On MoodKolkata you know what a story is, and which channel told it, before you press play. A video's title often carries the channel's name, the episode number and a string of tags together; we show the story's name on its own, in Bengali or in English. More than 2,000 stories also carry the channel's own few lines about them, so you know what kind of story it is before you begin.

Serials play from the first part, in order. Open a later part and the earlier ones are right there, so you never start a story in the middle. When a story ends, More like this offers another with the same character, by the same writer or in the same genre, and a later part never comes before an earlier one.

Stop halfway and the story waits for you at that very second, on your phone, and on your laptop too once you sign in. To fall asleep to a ghost story at night, set the sleep timer. In the car, there is Drive Mode.

What about Bengali songs?

MoodKolkata plays Bengali songs (bangla gaan) the way a Bengali feels them: by mood, by the hour and by the weather in Kolkata. Open it on a monsoon evening and it plays rain songs, because it is raining in Kolkata. At dawn it turns to Rabindra Sangeet, and at Puja to the Puja songs. Or choose a mood yourself: adda, love, longing, Nazrulgeeti, folk, old Bengali songs or Bangla band. The radio notices which songs you finish and which you skip, and plays more of what you love.

What is the MoodKolkata blog?

The MoodKolkata blog is a Bengali and English blog on Bengali life and culture: the festivals and the rituals behind them, the food of Bengal's kitchens, Kolkata's streets and its past, the places we travel to, the books we grew up on, and the songs and stories that go with them. We write for Bengalis in Bengal and far from it.

What sets it apart is simple: the blog plays what it writes about. Read about Mahalaya and hear Birendra Krishna Bhadra's Mahishasura Mardini on the same page; read about the Puja songs, and press play on them as you read.

Is MoodKolkata for Bengalis outside Kolkata?

Yes. MoodKolkata keeps Kolkata's clock and Kolkata's weather wherever you live, so when a monsoon evening sets in over Kolkata, the rain songs reach you in London, Bengaluru or Toronto too. So in Toronto you hear the rain songs while it is raining in Kolkata.

Whose stories and songs are these?

The stories and songs on MoodKolkata belong to the people who made them: record labels and artists, and Bengali story channels such as Mirchi Bangla (the home of Sunday Suspense), Mir Afsar Ali, 221B Harrison Road, Thriller Land and Akashvani Kolkata. Every play is a play on their own YouTube video, and every one of them is named on our Credits page.

Is MoodKolkata free? Do I need an account?

MoodKolkata is free, and you never need an account to listen. Signing in, with Google or an email link, only carries your stars, playlists, history and where you stopped to every device you use. More answers are on the FAQ page.

Contact

Write to us at [email protected] or [email protected].