http://thedailystar.net/suppliments/2008/pohela_boishakh/thoughts.htm
If there is any festival that unites all of us Bangalis, it is none other than the Bengali New Year or Pahela Baishakh (1st Baishakh). This is a time that enables us to forget all the differences and indulge in celebrating our Bangaliana.
The history of the Bengali Calendar or Bongabdo goes back over 400 years to the Mughal Era in India when Emperor Akbar in 1584 AD initiated it with the name Fasli San (agricultural year). It later came to be known in its current name. In the Mughal Era, the Hijri (Islamic) Calendar was followed for collecting agricultural taxes. However, as the Islamic calendar is a Moon calendar, it does not coincide with the harvest and this resulted in farmers being hard-pressed to pay taxes out of season. In order to take care of this problem, the Mughal Emperor ordered a reform of the calendar and accordingly, Fatehullah Shirazi, a renowned scholar and astronomer, formulated the Bangla year (Bongabdo) on the basis of the lunar Hijri and Bangla solar calendars.
The first day of the Bengali Calendar, is not only a time for jubilation and celebration, it also is a huge financial affair in the form of opening new halkhatas or new book of accounts. In villages, towns and cities, traders and businessmen close their old account books on this day and open new ones. They invite their customers to share sweets and renew their business relationship with them. This tradition is still practiced in different parts of the country, especially by jewelers. In Dhaka, this tradition still continues to thrive in the different business organizations based in Old Dhaka.
The historical importance of the celebration of the Bengali New Year in Bangladesh may be dated from the observance of the day by Chhayanat in 1965. In an attempt to suppress Bengali culture, the Pakistan Government had banned songs written by Rabindranath Tagore, the most famous poet and writer in Bengali literature. Protesting this move, Chhayanat opened their Pahela Baishakh celebration at Ramna Park (Ramna Botomul) with Tagore’s song welcoming the month. The day continued to be celebrated in East Pakistan as a symbol of Bengali culture. After we gained independence in 1971, it soon became a national festival, a symbol of the Bangladesh nationalist movement and an integral part of the people’s cultural heritage. Later, in mid 1980s the Institute of Fine Arts of Dhaka University added colour to the day by initiating the Boishakhi parade, much like a carnival parade. Today, the cultural function and Baishakhi Fair at Ramna Botomul and the parade organized by the Institute of Fine Arts has become an integral part of the Baishakh celebrations.
Since Pahela Baishakh is a public holiday, everyone gets the opportunity to celebrate it to the maximum. Starting from the musical soiree early in the morning at Ramna Botomul to the different Baishakhi Melas arranged all over the city, Dhaka, like all other cities in Bangladesh, becomes a celebration point of life. Men are seen to be clad in white kurtas while women grace themselves with the quintessential ’shada sharee with lal par’. The panta-ilish along with different other Bangali delicacies including a range of bhortas and pithas are on the must-have list on this day. Whether you roam around the whole day, or take a break and chill at home with friends and family over a glass of Tetuler Shorbot is totally up to you but the fact that everyone becomes a true Bangali on this day is undeniable.
But were we meant to be Bangalis for one single day every year? Is this why a countless number of men and women sacrificed their lives in our Liberation War in 1971? I hate to say this, but today, most of us are becoming what can be appropriately termed as ‘One-Day-Bangalis’.
Due to modernization and so-called westernization, our generation has the tendency to forget most of the Bangali culture that we were once proud of one day. A major part of every culture is its culinary delights and our culture is rich in its own array of different sorts of delicacies. Pitha, Kheer and other sweets, made out of patali gur and khejurer gur used to be a commonly available delicacy in different households of this region not a long time back. But today, it would be really difficult to find these delicacies when you go to someone’s house. Even if you do, it is very unlikely that it will be homemade. There is a lot of question on the quality of Pithas and sweets bought from different shops (especially after we got to see on TV the ‘extremely hygienic’ conditions in different shops in the mobile court missions). But people would find it ‘unsmart’ to present homemade pithas, they would rather buy these from different shops, many of whose maintenance of hygiene levels while making the food are seriously doubtable.
The history of cake dates back to more than 300 years and it still continues to be baked in almost all the households in the western world. I am not claiming that people do not buy from bakeries, they most certainly do, but they haven’t ceased to know how to bake it themselves. On special occasions, a homemade cake is a must no matter how rich or poor you are.
It’s true that life has become faster and we cannot afford to spend as much time on cooking as we could have possibly done before. But let’s go back to the example of the cake. Question is, if the Western people can still manage time with the help of new technologies (microwave ovens, blenders, mixers, etc.) why can’t we? Why have we become too busy to practice our own culture? That surely is a question that remains to be answered!
