By Alia Bloomgarden ’29

Staff Writer

On Saturday, Nov. 22, BONDHU, Mount Holyoke College’s Bangladeshi student organization, hosted a Bengali game night.

On this night, students gathered to play games, eat Indo-Chinese food, listen to Bengali music and watch three singing performances by Bangladeshi students. Shanum Sarkar ’29, a Bangladeshi student, explained in an interview with Mount Holyoke News, “Bengali game night… is very close to my heart, and — I can speak for all my friends — to their hearts, too … [board games are] such an important thing to have at every event.”

Sarkar further reminisced, “I learned how to count because I knew how to play ludo, and I knew I had to beat my dumb brother at ludo, so I knew how to count before he did. The fierce competitiveness, the joys, the screaming at your cousins, the throwing over the entire board because you're losing … Game nights bring out this whole personality of Bengali people that you've never seen before.”

BONDHU ordered the Indo-Chinese food from Priya, an Indian cuisine restaurant. Sarkar stated that “Desi-Chinese [or Indo-Chinese] is a famous thing back at home … It's basically … like Chinese fried rice, dumplings [and] other things, but cooked in Desi spices.” She explained that this food is in-between everyday and fancy food. She added, “It also reminds you of home because of the spice and the fragrances.”

The Bangladeshi students performed three songs: a mashup of Rabindranath Tagore’s Mayabono Biharini and Yellow by Coldplay, Tomar Ghore by Hasan Raja, and Jodi Dekhar Iccha Hoy, a folk song about love.

Sarkar explains that Mayabono Biharini is “heart-wrenching because it's an ode to an elusive yet alluring beloved whose beauty remains unattainable. And I think that nothing quite captures unrequited love like Rabindranath Thakur's work does, especially this song … this song is very popular… from the 90s to Gen Alpha [today].”

Yellow is also a song about unconditional love and devotion. And we just felt like those two songs would go very well together because the beat matched really well,” Sarkar said. Tomar Ghore is about “the multiple facets of our personality.”

This event showcased Bondhu’s “community and festive nature” that attracted Sarkar to Mount Holyoke in the first place. When Sarkar was asked about how she feels about the Bengali community on campus, she said she has found the Bengali community to be “more helpful than [she] thought [it] would be.”

“Even before I came here, they were like older sisters … [from] answering these annoying little questions like it was no bother at all, to involving us very heavily in the events… despite most of us not being on the board, to organizing Nobin Boron,” which is a “welcome event for new students who come to the campus,” she explained.

“I'm just very grateful for the Bangladeshis who've looked after us like we're their own, and I hope to one day be like them. And there are more little Bangladeshis on campus. I hope to learn more from them and be as supportive as them.”

Karishma Ramkarran ’27 contributed fact checking.