Tangents
Picturing <i>Pahela Baishakh </i>
Getting Ready for the Celebration. Photo: Ihtisham Kabir
I Love the festivals of Bangladesh. Most of all, I look forward to Pahela Baishakh, the Bengali New Year. It is a festival of pure fun, without any baggage, accompanied by a spirit of happiness that fills the air. For this one day, Bengalis from all walks of life shake off the troubles of their everyday existence- the daily grind of earning a living, along with 160 million others, from this tiny land- and celebrate being themselves. It is as if they look in the mirror in the morning and say, “Yes! It feels really good to be Bengali.” Exploring the milieu around Shahbag, I realise that while I was growing older abroad, Pahela Baishakh grew up too. The low-key festivities, singing and small-scale functions of my school days have metamorphosed into a gigantic, world-class party with its own colour code, music, cuisine and all-round good cheer. Everyone wears beautiful clothes. Parents have gone through great lengths to dress up their children. Flowers grace the hair of every woman I see. Faces are painted and masks are worn. Taking pictures, I am drawn irresistibly to the people, their dresses, and their interactions. I wander the grounds, searching for moments that may reveal a little more than the ordinary, and click away. The camera becomes an extension of my hungry eyes. I stare intently and without embarrassment, absorbing everything voraciously. Having spent most of my life abroad, I am making up for lost time. The shutter's click becomes my way of highlighting anything or anyone that catches my eye. Most people cooperate happily with me. Some turn away. A child looks up to see my large camera pointing at her: she unexpectedly bursts into tears and I kick myself. Some moments tell stories. Under a banyan, a woman holds open her compact mirror for her husband to inspect his freshly painted face. A daughter rides high on daddy's shoulders while holding a red ektara, both wearing matching green and red. A young man tenderly wraps a jasmine garland around the khopa of his sweetheart. A tired vendor woman, her own child sleeping next to her on the traffic island, sells miniature dhols to children of the well-to-do. Other moments hold suggestions of deeper meanings. Inside the park, a young man stands alone, a few feet apart from the crowd. He is wearing a mask which, strangely, accentuates his loneliness. A graceful middle-aged couple poses among the offerings of a flower shop, the experience of their shared years compressed into their faces. Back home, I eagerly look through the photographs. Through experience I have found that just because I enjoyed myself does not mean good pictures will follow, and so I am prepared for disappointments. Sure enough, detached from their exuberant reality, most photos look banal, like hundreds I have seen before, here and there. But today I am lucky, because, in addition to the wonderful memories, I also caught a few moments worth preserving.
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