My sincere apologies for the following errors:
1: The Souvenir editors were: Jukti Kalita, Caustoobh ( not Achintyo-- I have no idea how could mix up the two :-)) Bezbaruah,Rabin Deka and Jayanta Thakuria. THanks to Alpana Sarangapani for pointing out the errors. 2: I know I left out several other outstanding young performers. But I hope others will fill in what I missed. cm We had a great time at Denver. The hotel was very nice, set in a fancy, modern, suburban planned development. The surroundings outside the shopping/business complex were however scorched by a severe on-going drought. Even the Rockies in the background looked dried and hazy. The drought made Denver suburbia looksemi-arid. The bor-xobaah was very enjoyable. Of course, more than the entertainment, the opportunity to meet old friends, indulging in some nostalgic time travel and just being khar-khowas/ tenga-khowas was the most enjoyable parts. However on top of that there were awesome pieces of entertainment as well. Bonmoyuri Kalita's 'xatriya naas' was wonderful, as was Indrany Dutta Barua's classical dance ( can't remember what kind it was). The Silicon Valley Husori Party was just fantastic. I have seen no equal in these shores. THis troupe is going to go places, I can tell you that. And let us give them the inspiration to do so. The Houston Hurricanes :-)( as I call them) have continued to fine-tune their stylized Bihu dance, this time with co-ordinated mekhela-saadors. Some of the children put out stellar performances. Joyshree Das of St. Louis was one of them. THe youth put up terrific pieces too. Again the Silicon Valley H1B Drama Group :-) excelled, as did the NJ group in their humorous skits.Raja Deka could easily pass for Michael Jackson if he gets a face lift and a bleach job :-). The emcees-- MOnmi Goswami, Ricky Baruah and Abir Das -- were super too. There is a wealth of budding comedians among them. On the singing front, Abhranil Baruah, Gayatri Sarma, Satyen Das, Kuki Sundi, Reema Das, Madhav Deka --- all shined ( I am sure I am missing some, and hoping to be pardoned for my lapses). Of course the star of the entertainment was Dr. Anima Choudhury. She kept the audience spell-bound with her exceptional repertoir of Assamese songs, ancient to contemporary and everything in-between. On the more serious side, the presence of Dr. Indira ( Mamoni Roysom) Goswami was very special indeed. She awed all of us with her immense scholarship on the Ramayana along with her many skills in and contributions to contemporary Assamese literature. I am worried about only one thing: She promised ( I take it as a threat) to write a novel about us expatriate 'markhowas', and was observing our 'aadob-kaida' and was taking notes to that end. I just hope she would be merciful with us :-). We got a few things accomplished too. THe attendees in the general meeting took a resolution to authorize us to write a letter to the chief minister to intervene and approve our proposal for archiving the ancient manuscripts at DHAS. Dr. Goswami also volunteered to speak on behalf of our proposal to the powers that be. THe souvenir editors--Jukti Kalita, Achintyo Bezbaruah and Rabin Deka did a fine job, as did the editor of Luitor pora Mississippi and Enajori--Dil Deka. To top everything off, the hotel went thru a fire alarm at 3:30 am on Sunday, leading to a complete evacuation of the building. Talk about a dramatic finale'. It is a tremendous undertaking for any community to host such an event. More so for small communities like Denver's. Everything did not go as clockwork. But whatever little problems that might have appeared should be taken as challenges to overcome in future events. To learn from. As is becoming painfully evident there is an ever shrinking list of volunteers to host future events. St. Louis ( some people never learn) agreed to host the 2003 event by popular demand :-). Luckily 2004 was also spoken for: by the San Francisco Bay Area ( silicon-valley) community. We thank the organizers for a very tough job well done. We just hope we at St Louis can live up to the high standards of 'joint conventions'set by Houston, Cherry Hills, Toronto and Denver, next year. Respectfully, Chandan Mahanta, St. Louis
