We welcome another new year in the Bangla Calendar, Pahela Baishakh.
Potters and weavers and metalworkers and goldsmiths create dazzling, intricately-designed artifacts praised and highly prized by all who look upon them. Every harvest, or spring, autumn, and winter festival is a colourful carnival, with music and dance and ritual offerings and prayers.
It was not so long ago that we stumbled upon Baishakh at home away from home. Grim foggy London was finally waking up to spring.
After the partition of Indian subcontinent in 1947, when Pakistani rulers started to demean Bangali tradition by imposing Urdu and West Pakistani culture, the cultural significance of Pahela Baishakh started to resurface.
The diverse culture of Bangladesh has evolved over the centuries. During the Bengal Renaissance of the 19th and early 20th centuries...
The adages of Khona, a legendary astrologer of ancient times, continue to be a staple in the life of farmers, as these sayings impart crucial lessons about their land and agriculture.
The cultural construct has evolved slowly over the decades, to display loudly the rich cultural heritage of Bengal before the world. Interestingly, the Pahela Baishakh festival is the only of its kind that has no religious flavour to it. It is hundred percent secular where Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Buddhists join spontaneously.
