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Native Bengalis celebrate Tagore birthday
Several girls in bright-colored costumes stride toward a stage, their hands and feet moving slickly as the music plays
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everal girls in bright-colored costumes stride toward a stage, their hands and feet moving slickly as the music plays. A man recites verses from Janmadeen (My Birthday), a poem by renowned Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore.
The performance, along with a play, was part of the Rabindra Jayanti celebration, Tagore's birthday, held by the Jakarta Bengali Association (JABA) on Saturday.
"People cannot run out of things to say about Tagore. We can never speak enough about him," JABA president Madhu Adhya said.
"Back home Rabindra Jayanti is a major annual celebration. In India we always celebrate it in a grand way," she said.
Rabindranath Tagore was born in Jorasanko, West Bengal, India, on May 7, 1861. Tagore, a poet, novelist, musician and playwright, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his famous work Gitanjali in 1913. He was the first Asian to receive the prestigious award.
JABA, established in 1983, currently represents around 70 expatriate Bengal families throughout Greater Jakarta and has also become a meeting point for Bengalis in surrounding areas such as Bandung, West Java.
At the event, attendants also honored Abhijit Dasgupta and Prasoon Mukherji, JABA members who received the "Glory of Bengal", an award from the Non-Residence Overseas Association of Bengal (NROAB), for their professional dedication, in Doha, Qatar, in January this year.
"I appreciate the way this award captures the spirit of my work so far and it recognizes what I've been doing for the last 30 years to improve the condition of women starting from India and Southeast Asia, including Indonesia," Dasgupta said.
"I hope my friends and colleagues here are inspired by my story to do something to stop trafficking," he said. (lnd)
