Girls perform Bihu during the inaugural ceremony on Tuesday night. Picture by Nilay Bhattacharjee

Calcutta, Oct. 13: Tunes of pepa and dhol filled the air at a pandal in south Calcutta last night, not to welcome Bihu but to usher in Durga Puja.

A group of schoolgirls danced to the beat of a Bihu song during the inaugural function of the Proyashi Mahila Sangha Puja at Santoshpur here.

Dressed in mekhela sadors, the children got all their moves right and enthralled the audience, many of whom spent a part of their lives living in the Northeast.

For Subhra Basu Roy, who had been to Shillong and Guwahati when her husband was posted there, it was like being transported in time. “I felt like joining the kids on the stage,” she said.

Paramita Bhattacharjee, who taught the children their Bihu moves, once lived in Silchar. She came up with the idea when the Puja committee asked her to blend the most important festival of Assam with that of Bengal.

“What Bihu is for Assam, Durga Puja is to Bengal. I thought it would be a wonderful platform to showcase this beautiful dance. Moreover, the Bihu rhythm can get everyone to tap their feet, clap their hands and this is what happened during the performance,” she said.

“When we approached Bhattacharjee to do some folk-based number and she suggested Bihu, we loved the idea,” the secretary of the Puja committee, Sanchita Roy, said.

Having lived in Nagaland herself, a Bihu number was the perfect way to relive the memories of the Northeast, she added.

The children also enjoyed learning and performing Bihu. Eight-year-old Ritika Kainth, one of the girls who performed at the function, initially found the steps “a little difficult” but she picked them up very quick. “I don’t know what Bihu is but I enjoyed the dance,” she said. Her mother, Rinky, however knew it as a festival of Assam and had seen the dance on TV.

The Kainths are from Punjab and it was their first real encounter with Bihu as a dance form.

It was a “very different experience” for most of the people in the audience. Nandini Chakraborty, Krishna Gope and Class VII student Tiyasha Sengupta enjoyed the performance as a slice of Assam.

But for Abhisikta Talukdar, the only girl in the group of dancers with an Assam connection, it was something close to her heart. Her family had moved to Calcutta a few years back. “When I am older, I want to learn Bihu properly,” she said. And indeed, the keenness to keep the Assam link alive twinkled in her eyes.