A girl takes part in a painting competition at Bangla Mela in Ranchi on Sunday. (Manik Bose)

Ranchi, April 11: After three days of mingling and merry-making, curtains came down on the 11th edition of Bangla Sanskritik Mela — a cultural fest organised by the Ranchi wing of Jharkhand Bengali Association — at Jaipal Singh Stadium here this evening.

The mela, popularly known as Bangla Mela, began with much fanfare with a prabhat pheri on April 9. A number of events — beginning with shankhadhwani (blowing of conches) and uludhwani (ululation) and moving over to go-as you-like, music, dance, recitation and alpana competitions — were held over the three days. A sahitya basar was organised today.

The main draw in the evenings were musical programmes during which a number of outstation artistes performed. And variety was also the order of the day. While Ritapa and Priyam Mukherjee from Santiniketan presented Rabindrasangeet, Shrikanta Acharya, Sanghita Ghosh and Sujay Bhowmick from Calcutta gave a rendition of modern songs and Arindam Ganguly impressed the audience with a few folk numbers.

That was not all. People also got to see a shrutinatak by Urmimala and Jagannath Bose and Gaudiya nritya by Mahua Mukherjee and her troupe. A new band, Puff, enthralled the audience on the last day.

For the shopaholics, the mela had much to offer. Around 100 kiosks were set up that sold items varying from Rajasthani garments to terra-cotta knick-knacks and of course, lip-smacking delicacies. Over the years, the mela has become popular and is even frequented by non-Bengalis “I picked up some terra-cotta items,” said Aradhana Singh while Bimalendu Soren, who had studied at a Bengali school in Dumka, said: “I identify with this gathering”.