A vibrant community of both wings of the Bengal thrives in the heart of French speaking Montreal city in Quebec, Canada. Oftentimes, they share and show up with their cultural heritage in the multicultural society of the city.
A prominent Montreal based women’s magazine Jayanandini published by Mustafa Shamin Wahid – a philanthropist and women’s rights advocate of the South Asian community in Montreal – organized the last event showcasing rich heritage of Bengali culture to the Montrealers on Saturday, the 19th of July 2025 at 6767 Côte-des-Neiges in Montreal.
The program comprised three segments – each presented by the Bangali Abhibasi Network, Bangladeshi artists from Montreal, and Onno theatre based out of Toronto.
Sanjib Das Uttam briefly introduced the evening’s programme, which started with the recital composition entitled ‘Bangodesh o Sangoskriti – Nach, Gan, o Kichhu Kotha’, presented by Bangali Abhibashi Network: a Glocal Linguo-cultural Association (B.A.N.G.L.A.). BANGLA is a diaspora collective founded and incorporated as a non-profit entity with the Government of Canada as well as that of Quebec. It includes members originating from Bangladesh, India, Canada.
BANGLA network’s current President, Saikat (Doctoral Research Scholar, Civil Engineering, Concordia University), introduced their network’s vision and objectives in three languages – Bengali, French, and English. He had written the recital’s script as well and performed the accompanying elocutions. BANGLA network’s vision unequivocally identifies their ‘Glocal’ nature (bringing the local and global together) along with the founding principle of identifying, living, and celebrating the myriad forms Bengali language and culture in their own terms, essentially going beyond any kind of divisive nation-statist paradigms.
BANGLA’s main performance featured an interlinked ensemble of a few songs, elocutions, and a dance performance by two child artists Irene Kazi and Bindu Das, which commenced with a chanting from Upanishads along with a part of its Bengali translation by Rabindranath Thakur. Subsequently, the musical journey involved Bengali folk music, Odissi dance, and a medley of two modern Bengali songs, ‘Dhitang, Dhitang Bole/Madole Taal Tole’ and ‘Jhiko Jhiko Kori Re’, intertwined with a Nepali song (‘Nam ke ho’) having similar rhythm.
The part of modern music continued with the famous Nazrul Sangeet (‘Parodeshi megh Jao re phire’) and a Bengali song penned by Salil Chaudhuri (‘De dol dol dol’) with its original Marathi music composition (‘Mi Dolkar Daryacha Raja’) by Hridaynath Mangeshkar. A poem titled ‘Priyatamasu’, written by Sukanta Bhattacharya – the story of a travelling soldier in the form of a letter to their loved one, back home, was recited as well.
After that, there were recitations of two poems by Kamrin Kazi by profession who is a software engineer. The first among them was ‘Deshlai Kathi’ composed by Sukanta Bhattacharya and the other one was ‘Sarthok Janom’ by Shubho Dasgupta.
The final part of this ensemble was presented by the band ‘Premgatha Montreal’. Their performance of ‘Imon Rage Premkotha’, another knotted composition of songs, this time a Hindi (‘Piya ki Nazaria’), along with the poem ‘Ami’ by Rabindranath, culminated through an ‘Aalap’ in ‘Raaga Yaman’.
The team of the musicians comprised Sukanya Chakraborty (Post-Doctoral Research Scholar, Microbiology, University of Montreal) along with Aniket Sen (Research Scholar, Religious Studies, McGill University), Kamrin Kazi (Software Engineer), and Susmita Bose (Accountant and Investment Banker), the trio who represented the band as well.
The composition presented Bengali culture with a few dashes of fraternal South Asian colours, such as, Assamese, Odissi, Nepali, Marathi, and Hindi that blended with its own grandeur.
Then there were recitations of Bengali poems by a few local Bengali performers – Shamsad Rana, Sanjib Das Uttam, Afaz Toton, and Mufti Faruk – which were much appreciated by the people. Asif and Masud, from Toronto, played folk music which was much appreciated by the audience. A member of Onnyo Theatre, Dilara Nahar Babu also recited a Bengali poem.
In the last segment, a theatre group – Onnyo Theatre, Toronto, led by Ahmed Hossain – performed a play, Tin Konya (three girls), a story of three Bengali expatriate girls, which was already a widely acclaimed drama by the theatre group in Toronto that now stunned the audience in Montreal. It was the 27th show of the play by the group and the first in Montreal. The characters of three girls were played by Munima Sharmeen and Faria Rahman. Munima played two roles in the play in absence of the third actress of the drama.
