Chief minister Mamata Banerjee today announced that Star Theatre will be renamed as Binodini Theatre.

Wherever Nati Binodini is, she must be the happiest person. Bidoni Dasi (1863-1941) felt humiliated and offended when the great theatre personalities of that era refused to name the theatre as a B-theatre. Gurmukh Rai, a Punjabi businessman had agreed to give money provided the theatre is called the B-theatre. Binodini was very happy to get this news. But later the theatre personalities called it Star Theatre and not B-theatre as they thought that if a theatre hall is named after the daughter of a prostitute, people would not visit the theatre. Binodi carried this pain throughout her life.

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Sri Ramakrishna had visited Star Theatre on Beadon Street to watch Chaitanyaleela directed by Girish Chandra Ghose, father of the Bengali stage on 21 September, 1884. He went into a trance watching the drama and blessed Binodini and said “Mother Be Conscious” (Ma tomar chaitanya hok).

Binodini’s life changed after the incident. She left the theatre on 31 December, 1886 when she was just 24 years old. After this, she never visited the theatre hall. In 1906 when Girish Chandra invited Ma Sarada to watch Chaitanyaleela and approached Binodini to act as Nemai, she refused on the ground that Sri Ramakrishna would not come to watch it.

Binodini wrote an autobiography titled Amar Katha whose foreward was written by Girish Chandra Ghose.

A museum on Binodini has been set up at Star Theatre. Binodini used to stay at Star Lane, which is situated close to the Star Theatre.