Shakila Zafar and Subir Nandi at the South Asian Games

A colourful cultural function, titled Ushu, was held on Wednesday night to mark the inauguration of the South Asian Games. Around 15,000 enthusiastic people turned up at the programme, held at the Sylhet Stadium.

Noted singers Shakila Zafar and Subir Nandi participated in the three-hour presentation, while artistes from Sylhet staged an attractive Manipuri dance, patriotic songs and more.

After the formal inauguration and march-past by the participating teams from SA countries, young ones from the government- run Rainagar Girls’ Orphanage and Bagbari Boys’ Orphanage presented colourful programmes with patriotic songs.

The cultural function began with the presentation of a group dance, accompanied with a patriotic song “Ranga mati makhbo boley Shohor thekey niruddesh” by the artistes of Sylhet district Shilpakala Academy . Nilanjana Dass Jui directed the dances.

Then came the vocals section, with “Surma nadir tirey amar thikana rey”, “Ekti Bangladesh tumi jagroto janitar”, “O amar desher mati”, “Durgam giri” and “Teer hara ei dheuer sagar”, among others. The singers then went on stage with Hason Rajas’s “Matir pinjirar majhe” and more. The group included, Himangshu Biswas, Lovely Dev, Liton Roy, Animesh Bijoy Chowdhury, Shamim Ahmed, Antara Biswas Pinki, Mitali Chakravarty and Sajia Bintey Rahik.

The Manipuri artistes presented a colourful group dance, directed by L Santana Devi.

Subir Nandi presented his popular songs, “Tomar e jonney fosholer swapno”, “Din jai Kotha thakey”, “Tumi emon jal petechho sangsharey”, “Pran kandey, man kandey rey”, “O amar ural pankhirey” and more.

Shaklila Zafar went on the dias with her “Tomakey dekhley mounata bhuley jai”, ‘Tumi amar prothom sakal” and “Jejon premer bhab janey na”.

Anindia Dass Mom and Shehjin Waziha Hossain conducted the function.

The Finance Minister formally inaugurated the Sylhet venue by releasing pigeons while State Minister for Sports-Ahad Ali Sarker, Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Zheng Qingdian and the Sylhet City Mayor Badaruddin Ahmed Kamran were the main speakers.