Sheikh Arif Bulbon :The songs were depicting the spirit of rain and thunder, the words were praying to get rid of the heat of the sun and the dancers were in eye-soothing attires, brought about the feeling of a splash of downpour as cultural organisations welcomed the first day of the monsoon season through vibrant programmes on early morning on June 15 to mark the first day of Bengali month, Ashar. It was the beginning of this year’s monsoon season in the nature. Colourful dance, music and recitation were presented to adore the grace of monsoon by artistes of Satyen Sen Shilpigosthi at a programme divided into two phases at two venues on Dhaka University campus – Hakim Chattar (in the morning) and Bakultala of the Faculty of Fine Arts (in the afternoon). Besides, Udichi Shilpigosthi also welcomed monsoon at a programme at Bakultala of the Fine Arts Faculty of Dhaka University in the morning. The audience enjoyed songs of different genres and poems, highlighting monsoon, performed by noted and promising artistes. Spectacular dance recitals synchronised with songs added more colour to the programme.The morning session of the programme kicked off with vocal presentation of a classical raga miyan ki malhar, depicting the splendor of monsoon, rendered by noted singer Semonty Manjuri.Noted folk artiste Abu Bakar Siddique presented folk song Ashar Maishhya Pani in his powerful voice at the programme, which also featured chorus presentation of songs. Singers of Bonhishikha presented Abar ailo Ashar mash, while Satyen Sen Shilpigosthi rendered a Tagore song titled Mon mor megh-er o songi at the programme. Dancers of Spandan, through their colourful attire and well-coordinated dance moves, received loud applauses from the audience with their group dance recital with song titled Aji jharo jharo mukhor-o badal-o diney on the occasion. Recitation artiste Kakoli pleased the audience with her recitation of Joy Goswami’s famous poem Meghbalika. Different cultural organisations and solo artistes presented music, dance and poems at the programme by Udichi in the morning. n
