BANA Organizes Fun-filled Cultural Carnival in Houston

Bihar Association of North America (BANA) celebrated its annual “Cultural Carnival 2007” at Durgabari auditorium last Saturday with great success featuring more than 50 artists and over 400 people from Houston and the surrounding communities.

The cultural night was filled with variety show program with enticing dances and melodious songs of 14 different kinds and a drama performed on the well-known character of “Loha Singh”, a household name in Bihar.

Dr. Madhusudan Choudhary, the BANA President welcomed the guests including BANA past presidents, Jitendra Prasad, Prafull Kumar, Ram Mohan Mallik, Vijay Singh, and many others.

Many individuals and business houses including Tara Energy and Western Union came forward and generously sponsored this year's event.

BANA originally began with people living in the North America with roots in Bihar and now continues to bring together people from all over India with an ambition to preserve and promote social and cultural heritage by fostering academic and cultural excellence. It also contributes towards NGO work in India and is recognizing and awarding scholarships to youths in India and USA.

Three MCs, Shikha Sinha, Harsh Mishra, and Anish Bavishi enthusiastically conducted the first part of the program that included a classical dance recital by the children of BANA on Ganesh Bandana.

The program was carried forward by enchanting dances and vocal performances by children and adults. The cultural team tried to amalgamate classical dances to folk dances to modern day hip-hop.

Students of the Shivangini School of Dance enthralled the audience by their Kathak rendition on the song ““Radha Kaise Na Jale” from the movie Lagaan. The group dance by BANA ladies was a special attraction. The acrobatic based Bhangra and Dandia dance performance by the teen-aged boys was also the talk of the evening. A solo performance by Jhilmil Yadgamini depicting 60’s to 21st century of Bollywood dances was highly appreciated. The evening became melodious with the vocal performances of Mithuya Choudhary, Ira Kumar, and Nausha Asrar.

Ravi Kant Choudhary, the BANA secretary and the Coordinator of the Cultural Carnival 2007 thanked the participants, volunteers, parents, and attendees while also recognizing Mr. Nayyar Alam, the local radio host of “Music in the Box” at 1180 AM who did an excellent job in promoting the event over the air.

The next session of the program included an emotional drama “Loha Singh in Bandhan Toote Na” written and directed by Dr. Chandeshwar Sharma. The powerful performance kept the audience glued to their seats for the next two hours with many members of the audience in tears.

The play was dedicated to (late) Rameshwar Singh “Kashyap” who had originally conceived the characters of Loha Singh, Bulaki, Fatak Baba and Khaderan ko Mother. In Dr. Sharma’s own words “his play is an extension of Kashyap’s character that reflects the true nature of family bonding which makes us proud to be ‘Bihari’”.

While Chandeshwar Sharma himself portrayed the role of Loha Singh, Khaderan ko Mother was played by Prabha Singh. The character of Savitri, played by Pranati Mishra, depicted the cultural mix, pleasure, and pain of living in India and abroad.

Geetika Kamal played the role of Rupa while Dr Nausa Asrar acted as her alcoholic husband. Sanjeet Rai acted out the role of Fatak Baba and the character of Bulaki was played by Dr. Rajeev Kamal.

Among those who handled the stage and the technical aspects of the event included Anil Mishra, Kunjan Sharma, Mayank Gautam, Shikha Sharma, Pratyancha Sharma, Santosh Kumar, Alok Ranjan, and many others.

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