Bangladesh Delhi mission celebrates Poila Baishak

On this Poila Baishak, the Bangla New Year's Day 1426, Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi wore a festive look.

Children in coulourful dress, women in red-bordered sari and men in pyjama-punjabi greeted each other with Shubho Naboborsho in celebration of Poila Baishak, the first day of Bangla Naboborsho. This has been an ancient tradition of the Bengalis since Mughal Emperor Akbar introduced it in 1556 to facilitate tax collection in the harvesting season.

It was a day of music, dance, Mangal Shobhajatra and enjoying the traditional Bangla food, as the Delhi mission joined the compatriots at home and all over the world to welcome the day with Rabindranath Tagore's 'Esho heh Baishaikh Esho...' (Come on Baishakh, Come.)

With the beat of drums and dugdugi (a traditional musical instrument), children accompanied by women, went round the mission's Maitree Hall in staging the Mangal Shobhajatra (the procession of good wishes) waving replicas of birds, animals, boats, palank and masks highlighting the spirit of secularism and cultural tradition of Bengalis. They were greeted with thunderous applause from the audience comprising the Bengali community of New Delhi and the members of the mission.

The Mangal Shobhajatra is a tribute to the secular feature of the festival that has evolved over the years and became an integral part of Bangladesh's struggle for political and cultural freedom from the tyranny of Pakistan, of which Bangladesh was a part until its independence.

It has been a part of the tradition since late 80s, organised by the teachers and students of Bangladesh Fine Arts Institute. The UNESCO has recently recognised the pageant as the intangible cultural heritage of the humanity.

Syed Muazzem Ali, Bangladesh High Commissioner to India, wrote in one of his Poila Baishak article, how Chhayanaut, a premier cultural organisation, used the celebration of Pahela Baishakh as a tool to fight the religious oppression of Pakistan regime.

It was Chhayanaut which first held a public music event at Ramna Batamul in 1967 in celebration of Poila Baishak. "That marked the beginning of the Bengali Nobobarsha in the capital city of Dhaka," wrote the high commissioner. "The Pakistani authorities did not look at this development favourably and various attempts were made to kill this initiative. The more they tried to suppress the indomitable Bengali spirit, the more fiercely we resisted and the crowd kept getting bigger every year."

The programme rounded off with a musical soiree by a cultural troupe led by artist Samina Dey Urmi.