When the curtains went up on the North American Bengali Conference (NABC) in New York earlier this month, it marked the silver jubilee of not only ?the national festival for Bengalis in the US? but also an effort to introduce the next generation to its cultural roots.
?It is the continued involvement of next generation members that makes NABC a rousing success,? says Shomik Roy, who was a co-chair of the Next Generation NABC 2005 committee.
In fact, the highlight of the inauguration at Madison Square Garden was a dance collage based on God bless America and Vande Mataram, in which 70 young Indian-Americans took part. ?The dancers were from New York, New Jersey, Georgia or Edmundton in Canada,? says Sukalyan Bhattacharya, the show?s 30-year-old Toronto-based choreographer, who picked up an award for this pastiche of fusion and folk, ballet and Bharatanatyam.
?It was an amazing experience to perform in front of over 20,000 spectators,? gushes Ishita Bhattacharya of New Jersey, all of nine years and the youngest of the dance group. Ishita has trained in piano and ballet and this was her first ?major Indian show?.
The stars on the microphone were 20-something Rini Sen and Sasha Ghoshal, who matched the singers who flew over from Calcutta. According to Tejendra Narayan Majumdar, who had composed Panchadeepamala, featuring raga-based Bengali compositions, ?Rini was as comfortable with Star Spangled Banners at the inauguration as with an Atulprasad song, Shey dake amare, in Raag Bhairavi.?
While Majumdar sent CDs to his singers, Bhattacharya had to fly around the various cities for rehearsals. ?These youth have a lot of potential, but they do not concentrate that much on the craft as performers do in India. Yet they have amazing support from parents, who would drive for two-three hours every day to bring their children to the rehearsals.?
Singer Srikanto Acharya, who attended his second NABC, feels that it is unfair to expect youngsters born and brought up there to be as enthusiastic about such cultural gathering as their parents. ?I have seen tennagers play in the parking lot while their parents offer anjali or attend cultural programmes during Puja. The language of the songs and the poems becomes a great divider.?
No wonder then that hosting just the cultural programmes is not enough. ?Nearly every year, a separate committee is created to develop a programme uniquely designed for the next generation community,? says Roy.
Take the speed dating event. ?This was an opportunity for marriage-minded Bengalis to interact in order to learn more about their peers. From what I understand, a number of friendships were born,? Roy points out.
A ?How to tell your parents? seminar was designed to offer second generation members advice on how to broach sensitive topics with their parents. ?Topics included dating outside of our ethnicity, pursuing non-traditional academics, homosexuality, career choices, etc. A large attendance marked all such shows.?
Would culture from back home find less takers as the years roll by? Acharya has an answer. ?By then, those who are migrating now will reach their prime and will crave for the songs they grew up with.? So it may be Bangla band in place of S.D. Burman.
