Celebrations
Baishakh --- a tapestry of poetry
Pahela Baishakh fills us with renewed ardour and zeal which comes in new contours every year. Shubho Nababarsha is the tiding of the day, and I cannot but help share my thoughts with all. Tagore's classic call esho hey baishakh esho esho awakens us today as always on this auspicious day.
The nature of my father's job made us stay away from home for many years together, and hence out of touch with the real flavour of the event! At times like these, Pahela Baishakh connected all Bengalis living abroad, as we were, in Lebanon for instance. We cheerfully welcomed it with immense exhilaration and bliss! We were convinced that this celebration was indeed an integral part of our culture, especially for us who were so far away from our motherland. We all joined and found it an occasion free of the barriers of caste or status. It was indeed a heartfelt bond of love and unity. Not only that, it surely ushered in the commencement of a year filled with new hope, happiness and anticipation. After liberation when we came back to a free Bangladesh, it was quite an intriguing discovery for me that Bengali businessmen began their new accounts book (haal khata,from this day, but also that in some places this day was considered an auspicious one for marriages.
Homes were decorated with leaves and flowers; and people dressed in fine clothes. Women wore white sarees with red borders; and men went for lungis and pyjamas, and kurtas. Many city-people started the day with the traditional breakfast of pantha bhaat, fried hilsa fish, shutki maachh, bharta, pickles, green chillies, and lentil soup. Parades akin to carnivals occupied the streets, eventually to be attached to the Institute Of Fine Arts in the mid-1980's, to add colour to the day .The additional treat? Our very own quaint products were put up for sale. Entertainments like dramas, puppet shows, jatra and pala gaan attracted people from all walks of life. Unlike Eid or Christmas, Pahela Baishakh was really about celebrating the simpler rural roots of Bengal, all the more reason for people to participate without the burden of having to reveal one's class or religion or financial capacity. A good learning for our children, without question.
There are some thoughts I would like to convey to the torch bearers of our traditions. Let us today note the key facets of a worthy life........friendship.Bertrand Russell once said, 'Modern man should aim at avoiding self-centered passions. The happy man is he who lives objectively, who has free affections and wide interests. Such a man feels himself a citizen of the universe enjoying freely the spectacular view that it offers and the joy it affords.' People these days have become quite self-centred. By extending your open arms, enfold all sorrows and griefs and replenish your friendship.Try being a catalyst,to prevent a fast degenerating world. Endeavour doing good things which you may not think big, but which really mean a lot. They brighten the day for others because they are a reminder that someone cares. The world will be touched by your thoughtfulness, lifted by your kindness, and renewed by your goodness. It will be twice as meaningful and half as challenging.
Life is supposed to be fun and no challenge is so serious that it cannot be figured out together. Murky days ahead are threatening us. Brush away the clouds by your sunny smiles, infuse the positive of support, and you will witness the magic of heaven on earth. Build a 'tapestry of friendship '. It is a weaving together of many lives around you. It is a creation of passion, artistry and soul that should be honoured, nurtured and embraced. Let your friendship be an ever-growing, ever-changing work of art that weaves together and apart, that which is true, alive and beautiful.
Pahela Baishakh is a time to blot out old conflicts and bellyaches, to rejoice and sing the selfsame songs, to engage yourself with others by trying to blend into the same colours without harking back to old differences, distances or disputes. Let us today eliminate all grudges, spite, resentment and animosity. Would it not be wonderful if we did not make the sky a private haven but a shared canopy? I am convinced we would behold a sudden crumbling of all barriers.
Let us today and always try and ring out old laments and ring in all glee and gaiety. This will be our gift to the world to be.
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