Assam 2007

Assam 2007

By Editor ⋅ July 31, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Assam 2007, the eagerly anticipated yearly Assamese get-together, was joyously celebrated recently by people from all over of North America. This year’s event was held in the Mid-Atlantic city of Laurel, MD. Laurel is only 30 minutes from the US capital Washington, D.C. It is also 30 minutes from the famous City of Baltimore, Maryland, where the US fought one of her last battles with the British Army. Baltimore is also the place where the lyrics of the Star Spangled Banner were composed.

Like all previous years, this year also the event was celebrated during the first weekend of July. It was organized by a group of very energetic and independent young individuals from the Northeast part of the US. This was a gathering where every Assamese was invited irrespective of their organizational involvement or affiliation in the US. Assam Society of America and ASA Foundation embraced this celebration and supported the event organizers. Assam Foundation of North America participated, raising money for charitable causes. People came from all across USA including some visiting guests and relatives from India. Among the notable guests, the group had the honor of hosting the Chief Minister of Assam along with his beloved wife and an entourage of delegates from the Indian Embassy in Washington, D.C. The other notable guest was the cultural spotlight of this get-together, Assam’s beloved artist, very well known in India, Zubeen Garg, accompanied by his beautiful wife Garima.

Assam 2007 was very successful in spirit and reality! It was due to the relentless efforts of a hardworking organizing committee under the leadership of Niranjan Brahma and Prabin Dutta as the Chair and Co-chair. Rajib Barua was the Chair of Souvenir and Website committee, Sangeeta Dutta led the Chair of Reception Committee, and Utpal Borah was the Chair for the Cultural Committee. Ritu Sharma served as the Chair of the Fund Raising Committee last but not least Mukul Chowdhary was the Treasurer. Without Utpal’s relentless hard work and perseverance, it would have been impossible to get a busy and demanding artist all the way from India to showcase as the main highlight of the cultural program. The Website was of such an excellent quality that there were several thousand hits not only from folks in the US but also from India. There were many other hard working folks as members of various committees. Our heartfelt gratitude and thanks to each every one of them. Everyone left Laurel with a very fun filled positive experience.

The event started in the evening of June 29th when most of the host committee members and their families arrived. They decorated all the rooms reserved for the events and ended the night with a free-style group dance to various songs and music choreographed on DJ equipments by our multi-talented artists Marshilla and Mridu Brahma.

Each of the next two days started with a healthy breakfast followed by registration and various events during the day. Each registrant was given a souvenir bag filled with goodies: Assam 2007 Gamosha especially woven and flown in from Assam, the event Souvenir publication and a directory of Assamese people not just only from the US and Canada but also few other countries.

There were too many activities and programs to mention them individually here. Some of the high lights are: the Trivia questions on Assam, the movie Jatinga Etyadi, the Assamese Fashion show where in many instances every member of a family participated. Many children participated in programs performing Bihu dance to Bollywood dances. We had many talented local artists. Given the right opportunities, some of them could be like Zubeen Garg in time. There were modern dances, Bihu dances, Sattriya dances, classical dances, Husori, Mukoli Bihu and many other dances. In the same way there were many different songs from Assamese modern, Hindi filmy ones to Gazals. Of course, the highlight of the whole get-together as we mentioned earlier was much-awaited performance by Zubeen that turned out to be truly electrifying. His songs were like dance-magnets when children and adults alike came forward filling up the large dance floor, dancing and bouncing with his various songs, including his all too famous Ya Ali. Zubeen is already great, but he is still so young and has so much potential! The audience enjoyed the song so much that he performed the Ya Ali twice. He definitely knows how to please an audience! Many of us believe if he tries, one day he can be a famous artist even outside India, especially in the US. He does have the potential.

The food and fellowship were excellent. People traveled from everywhere not only for the guest artist or for the cultural programs, but they also came simply to meet one another. Where would you get this once a year opportunity to meet so many Khar Khua Assamese in one place outside of Assam?! This group also came together to raise $1500 dollars for the charitable cause of supporting Pranjalaya and Parijat Academy in Axom. In future years, hopefully we will be able to do more in the charitable fronts. We thank everyone who came and joined us in this celebration.

Our best wishes to Zubeen and many thanks to him for taking the time off from his busy schedule to enliven our hearts and our get together. Everyone also enjoyed Zubeen and Garima’s down-to-earth personality. We also thank our guest, the Honorable Chief Minister, Mr. Tarun Gogoi for traveling all the way from Assam. His presence, presentation and question answer session really dignified our get-together.

We wish we could name everyone who worked to make Assam 2007 a successful event. There were simply too many and we also don’t want to miss any names. So, once again we thank everyone who worked and participated in Assam 2007 from the bottom of our hearts. Hopefully, next year we will be able to do even better, with more participation and may be just one joint event for all Assamese people in the USA rather than get-togethers in two in different locations on the same days!

By Dhruba Das and Niranjan Brahma