The Embassy of Nepal in Dhaka, Bangladesh, hosted a literary evening on Saturday.
Bangladeshi State Minister for Social Welfare of Bangladesh His Excellency Adv. Pramod Mankin and Secretary for Cultural Affairs Mr. Ranajit Biswas were present during the occasion.
The function was organized while welcoming a 12-member Nepali literary and cultural team who were in Bangladesh for Nepal-Bangladesh Literary and Cultural Exchange Program.
Welcoming the guests, Ambassador of Nepal in Bangladesh Hari Kumar Shrestha expressed happiness over the initiation of literary and cultural exchanges between the two countries, and hoped that such initiatives will go a long way in expanding and deepening the interactions between Nepali and Bangla languages and literatures.
In his address, the State Minister for Social Welfare Mankin laid emphasis on further accelerating the people-to-people level interactions between the two countries. Similarly, Culture Secretary Biswas welcomed the literary and cultural team from Nepal and expressed happiness over the initiative to bring the writers and litterateurs from the two countries closer to each other.
A bevy of prominent Bangladeshi poets read out their poems on the occasion, including Rabiul Hossain, Dilara Hafiz, Kazi Rosy and Tariq Shujat, among others.
Similarly, Nepali poets Sri Om Shrestha ‘Rodan’, Radheshyam Lekali, Krishna Prasain, Narendra Bahadur Shrestha and Matrika Pokharel also read their poems. Nepali singer Pradip Bomjan sang a few of his popular numbers. Nepali poets in Dhaka Dr. Hemnath Ghimire and Niraj Bhattarai read out their poems, while Sushil K Lamsal, Deputy Chief of Mission, read out his Bangla translation of Poet Laureate Laxmi Prasad Devkota’s poem ‘Pagal’.