Jorhat, May 31: The streets of London witnessed traditional Assamese Bihu husori this April with a few like-minded UK-based Assamese families, backed by an online venture by two Assamese youths, launching the event Axom-r Bihu British-r Suburi (Assam's Bihu in British neighbourhood) this year.

"The primary objective of the event is to promote Assamese traditions and culture in England and we are using the traditional Bihu husori as a means to do so. The response this year has been encouraging and we are planning to carry on with this every year during Bohag Bihu," Rituraj Sharma, an organiser of the event, told The Telegraph from London today.

Sharma said just the way husori is performed in the front yards of Assamese households during Bihu, husori was performed in the courtyards of British households during Bihu this year.

"British neighbours were also invited to witness the event," he said.

The hour-and-a-half-long event comprised short presentations where speeches were delivered on Assam and to educate the audience on the significance of culture as a whole and Bihu in particular and also to promote Assam as a tourist hotspot.

"Assamese cuisines were also prepared and served to the audience," Sharma said.

The initiative was taken by Bordoloisila Bihu Gosthi, a team of talented UK-based Assamese families, and back2music, an online conceptby two Assamese youths that endeavours to involve those talented voices from Assam who were very good singers during their college or university days but never really pursued music as a profession.

Sharma, one of the co-founders of back2music, said, "There were about 16 families involved in the initiative and the Bihu team was trained by Xattriya dance trainers Jyoti Prashad Hazarika and Jurie Jill Baruah. We plan to carry on with this event every year during Bohag Bihu as the first year's response has been very encouraging."

He said all traditional norms, including traditional Bihu attire, accessories, instruments and songs, were considered while preparing for the husori.

Sharma said back2music was in touch with Assamese people across the world and had appealed for replication of such initiatives in their localities to make it a global cultural event.

"We got very encouraging response from the Assam Association Delhi and the Assam Society of Bangalore, who also took the concept of husori to the localities in their respective areas. We hope this will be initiated in more states in India as well as in other parts of the world," he said, adding that such initiatives would be a wonderful way of creating awareness about Assam especially as people from the Northeast have faced discrimination of sorts in different states of India in recent times.

"We want to send this message to the Assamese fraternity across the globe that each one of us can be a cultural ambassador of our beautiful state and promote the bond of brotherhood and camaraderie with the local communities where we live," he said.