Feature

13th Annual Cultural Evening of NSU!

Sabrina Hasan Shoily

Annual cultural evening (ACE) is perhaps one of the most awaited events of the year for the students of North South University (NSU). Like every year, North South University Shangskritik Shangathan (NSUSS) organized the 13th ACE, which was held on the 23rd and 24th November at the Osmani Memorial Hall. The theme of this year's ACE was 'Shadhinota' (Independence).

At first, one minute of silence was observed to honour those who had lost their lives in the recent cyclone, our Proctor GM Quasem Sir whose death anniversary was on the 24th November and our faculty Dewan Rahat Karim who recently expired. After that, the show started with the national anthem being played in the background.

The first performance was by Saleh who sang “Mon chuyechho mon diyechhi” by Bappa Majumdar. His fresh voice was really melodious and the feel of the song was quite youthful and peppy! Next in line was Trina with “Dekhechho ki taake”. She too, was quite successful in singing the song in a beautiful manner. Shumaila & Sakin (Day 1) and Tanvir & Nightingale (Day 2) sang “Amar majhe nei ekhon ami” from the movie 'Rani kuthir baki itihash'.

NSUSS presented an in-house production this semester called “Radio Aula 420.6 FM”. Afnan performed a skit from that show. It was extremely hilarious to those who did not watch the in-house show. The scene was based on two radio stations' frequencies getting mixed up and thus confusing the poor listener, who in an attempt to do some free hand exercises gets confused due to a cooking show and fitness show airing simultaneously in two stations!

The rest of the show was then carried on by Opu (played by Rumman) who finds a dairy written by a young girl who lived during the Liberation War, throughout the show, Rumman and Nitu read pages from the diary and the performances took place.

Then a poem “Shadhinota shobdo ta kibhabe amader holo' was recited by Alim, who did a brilliant job. Sunny was the next one to come on stage with his song “Ek poshla brishti”. His performance was too appreciated by the audience.

Like every year, NSU News was one of the main attractions of ACE. This year, the news was presented by Samanta; who called herself Nilufar Kinnori Tabassum (a.k.a Nikita) and Adnan; who was Yaafi Bari Khan (a.k.a Yaba Khan)! The news had quite a lot funny items, such as the never ending dilemma, which the NSU students have with their elevators, the waiting for the new campus is still continuing, and an outdoor traffic broadcaster who was called Fahad Latif Turjo (a.k.a Faltu) who, instead of providing news about traffic jam was flirting over the phone with Nikita!

In between the news, Rintu and Jayita along with four other members came on the stage to present the advertisement of itish-pitish.com (an imaginary website for dating!). The jingle of the ad was that of a leading telecom company's advertisement jingle. The lyrics of the song made the audience die out of laughter.

The next song “Ami jabo na jabo na” was sung by Tonmoy (Day 1) and Arshad (Day 2) while Munmun danced on the song both the days. Then Tuli presented the song 'Akash amae'.

Anika and Dipu did one of the most beautiful performances of the show. Anika sang while Dipu recited the poem “September in Jessore Road' and video clips of the liberation war were being shown on the screens. The performance made almost everyone in the audience extremely emotional.

Real came up next and enthralled the audience with “So far away” by 'Staind'. Then there was an amazing dance performance by Shompriti and seven other boys and girls. The performance was really good with wonderful choreography and great presentation.

After the dance, Drishti (Day 1) and Nusrat (Day 2) sang “Ami opar hoe boshe achhi”. Both were equally good in singing the song. One of the main attractions of ACE are the skits with extremely funny sequences and dialogues, this year was no exception as well. There was a skit about a movie with hilarious characters and situations and everyone enjoyed it a lot!

Then Rafi sang “Hashimukh” by 'Shironamhin' along with Nusrat.

The last performance was by Saleh, Talha, Anika and Drishti; they sang “Dhono dhanne pushpe bhora”.

After “Dhono dhanne” all the performers came on the stage with lighted candles while the host of the entire show S.M Sarfaraj Ali Zico gave a concluding speech, which made us feel really patriotic and made us realize how ignorant are we about our own history. He said, that we are lucky enough to have the freedom fighters amongst us; the next generation will not have them anymore. So, we should listen to their stories, their sacrifices and respect them for everything they have done for the freedom of our beloved motherland.

Then, our honorable VC Dr. Hafiz G. A. Siddiqi, Pro VC Dr S.A.M Khairul Bashar, Faculty Advisor of NSUSS Deena P. Forkan was called upon the stage to express their opinion about the 13th ACE. They congratulated all the members of NSUSS for working really hard for the ACE and our VC emphasized on the fact that the 13th ACE was one of a kind because it helped to inject a strong patriotic fervour into the youth of today. These youngsters, who have not seen our Liberation War, needs to rediscover themselves as righteous citizens all the time.

All in all, the 13th ACE was a huge success, NSUSS did work very hard, as always and the theme made this year's ACE different from all the other ACEs. Programs like these are truly capable of bringing the youth of today back to their roots. Everyone came out of the venue with a different kind of a positive feeling inside us and silently we promised ourselves to do something to make our country proud. Such was the magic of our ACE!