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Event

Brine Pickles in IUB

Nazia Ahmed

A beautiful bright sunny day was ornamented with a wonderful literary event of poetry, plays and punchy stories. The IUB Literary Society (ILS) and Brine Pickles teamed up on September 14 for a truly entertaining event, which celebrated three auspicious happenings in one occasion.

'Brine Pickles' is a young, amateur group of writers, poets and playwrights, formed by the British Council, who have introduced 'performance literature' in English in Bangladesh. Having recently launched their first anthology 'Maps and Metaphors', they have embarked on a book promotion tour of private universities, starting with IUB. As for ILS, this was their wake-up call from hibernation as they are preparing for the second edition of their magazine “The Hive”. Furthermore, Haroonuzzaman, a senior faculty member in IUB, has recently released his book 'Songs of Lalon', and this event was the book's formal debut at the university.

In the beginning of the show, the audience was hushed to an awed silence by the strum of Farshid Alam's guitar, as the ILS representative vocalised the legendary lyrics of John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

This was followed by the Brine Pickles and their signature themed performance, which connected several of their individual pieces into one flowing story line. It kicked off with a short comedy enacted by Farhana Farid and Theotonius Gomes on “Fred and Wilma's Robo Mania”, prompting chuckles from the audience.

A parody of an Andrew Marvell poem performed by Hammad Ali and Munasir kamal seasoned the programme next, which was a romantic sketch on the continuity of love. The programme probe continued with performances by Hammad Ali with “Shower Rod”, “Jane Doe” by Sabrina F Ahmad, “Oil” by Amanda Smith (performed by Sabreena Ahmed), “Under the stars” by Rubaid Mahbub and Maherin Ahmad, and “Nakshi Kantha”, by Farhana Farid and Hasan Ameen's “'Fessing up my dirty mind”. The backdrop for the scenes was created by means of digital animations projected on a screen and live music by Theotonius Gomes added ambience.

Following this group performance, the show MC Kashfee Habib called on stage Assistant Professor Haroonuzzaman who launched Songs of Lalon, reading out some choice lyrics from the book. Some of the songs were then performed by an IUB student on stage, adding a soothing contrast to the whole show. The show ended with The VC's (IUB) speech.

Copies of Maps and Metaphors were available for sale at the venue.