The Bhoomi line-up: Ambassadors of peace. A Telegraph picture

Bangla bands have been performing regularly in the US and UK and their reach seems to be extending beyond the Bengali NRI circles. If last October, Chandrabindoo toured Philadelphia, New Jersey, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas and San Jose as official style partner of jeans major Levi?s, this year Bhoomi has done one better. They have been invited to perform at the UN.

?We have just been informed that we will perform at the UN headquarters on July 12. It will probably be an hour-long programme for the staff,? lead singer, drummer and lyricist of Bhoomi Soumitro Ray told Metro on Saturday.

The group, comprising Soumitro, Surajit Chatterjee, Sanjoy Mukherjee, Hemanta Goswami and Abhijeet Ghosh, are scheduled to perform at the Banga Sammelan in Houston before that. But after nearly 1,000 shows, a book of lyrics and a bunch of immensely popular albums, it is the UN show the band is most excited about.

Bhoomi plans to showcase their best compositions on brotherhood and on environment and other issues. The members hope to project the band as an ambassador of peace.

Rooted to folk tunes and everyday reality, the group has quite a few hits to choose from for their performance. ?They haven?t set any restrictions but I think songs like Dak, Sapna, Rangeela, Dena go dena go will go down well. Nothing is finalised yet, but we might sing a few cover versions like my favourite Simon and Garfunkel number Last night I had the strangest dream. We also hope to present a few new songs specially written for the foreign audience,? said Ray, busy giving tune to his just-written English lyrics.