Cornell Insider Staff
Oliver Renick
Joe Bonica
Lucia Rafanelli
Hannah MacLean
Peter Bouris
lukepolicastro
zjw5
Anthony
Brendan Patrick Devine
Sam Pell
kmccaffrey
Greg Stein
Michael Alan
nkantro
Alfonse Muglia
Cornell_Karim
R. Patrick McCaffrey
dillonhickman
Jonathan Jaffe
Roberto Matos
Kushagra Aniket
L.R. Conrad
Roshni Mehta
The Bengali Cultural Association, a pan-Bengali club on campus presented the Bengali Cultural Night on Sunday, November 20 in the Willard Straight Memorial Room. They had some good food but the Bengali faction was much smaller compared to all others. It was exciting to see people, including students and professors, standing in the serpentine line for the food counter. There was some debate among us as the same snack was called by different names in different parts of India. At least we reconciled before we had a babel. Most of the performances (classical and folk dances and Bengali music) were well received except for the play which had people chattering in inaudible, incomprehensible and often un-Bengali sentences. The climax came when someone from the stage asked the audience, “What is the national animal of Bengal?” Good question, but politically incorrect as there is no nation called Bengal. Bengal was partitioned between East Bengal (Bangladesh) and West Bengal (part of India) in 1947! Some front-seater answered “Tiger” and was garlanded. This drama continued incoherently during anti-climactic intervals between shows.
