As with tradition the 2011 ASSAM DAY was celebrated on 27th and 28th August in Brooklands Hotel in Barnsley, Yorkshire, England by a large number from the small Assamese Community residing in the United Kingdom and Ireland. There were visitors from Dubai and Assam who graced the occasion.
The United Assam Association of UK were once again the driving force behind this unique gathering of like-minded and fun-loving people (young and old), all determined to keep up the Assamese traditions of culture and language despite being several thousand miles away from native Assam.
This two-day event is clearly one of the main highlights in the calendar of the UK ‘Assamites’ and indeed the first day began with informal warming up sessions of music, song, dance and plenty of good Assamese food and drink. The impromptu cultural contributions by many home-grown (UK) talents were complemented by a splendidly choreographed group Bihu Dance by Madhurima Choudhury who has performed at previous Assam Days and is always well received. Mr and Mrs, and the generation game which was organised by the younger generation was very entertaining. All the audience will remember the mimicry of Anirban Dutta and the well choreographed Bollywood dance by Dinesh and Mridutrisha. This was followed by a combination of ‘Bollywood’ and ‘Hollywood’ music and dance session that continued well passed midnight to wrap up the a very eventful first day.
The second and final day was well underway by mid-morning with a brilliant quiz contest hosted by Dr Gaurav Goswami as the very experienced quizmaster with help from Soma Goswami , his wife. Amidst a mixture of friendly rivalry, a little cheating here and there and plenty of cynical jokes and comments, the quiz session proved to be very challenging but enormously successful. Difficult as it is to follow such a competitive and successful event, the ‘mini Olympics’ did, however, bring about enormous good-natured rivalry and latent skills amongst the gathering.
The screening of a romantic Assamese Film “Tumar Morome Moor” produced by Dr Cida Das during mid-afternoon kept many huddled together in the main hall.
As evening drew, the main formal cultural ceremony of Assam Day got underway and brought the whole gathering into the auditorium to watch the two main invited guest artists, Menaka PP Bora, an award winning Indian Classical dance soloist, choreographer and ethnomusicologist from Assam and Sanjoy Dey, an accomplished singer of Assamese, Hindi, Bengali and Regional Folk songs, who is currently based in Leeds, England.
Menaka PP Bora delighted the audience with new pieces of Sattriya Dance and Bharat Natyam with a particular focus on Assam, both performances being preceded by vocal explanations at the beginning.
Sanjoy Dey also captured the elated mood of the audience and got them to join in the singing and dancing with his popular numbers from Bollywood Films and from the enormous collection of songs by our own maestro, Dr Bhupen Hazarika.
The Half an hour music workshop with Sanjoy Dey produced a superb presentation of “JAI HO” by the younger generation.
Another highlight of the evening was the formal dinner, which was graced by Mr Gillem Sandys.Lumsdaine as the chief guest accompanied by his wife Mrs Beverley Lumsdaine and son Mr Cren Lumsdaine. Mr Lumsdaine has long association with tea industry in Assam.
As with normal traditions of the formal dinner there were after dinner speeches, presentation of bouquets, raffle and auction.
The big little star Navina Arora’s special welcoming dance just before the formal dinner was an added treat to the guests.
Dinner was followed by the final session of cultural entertainment, which got everyone on his or her feet on the dance floor to see the rest of the evening away in true style and with that bring the 2011 ASSAM DAY to a close.
In keeping with previous ‘ASSAM DAYS’ this was yet another very successful annual event that brought ‘Assamites’ young and old together to share their common cultural values and encourage the small community to not only enjoy each other’s company but to continue this legacy into the next generation—JOI AI ASOM.