by Syed Badrul Ahsan

Baishakh for me is a reassertion of the self, the purely Bengali self, that resides in me, in other Bengalis across this land and around the world. No, it is not love of the self, or excessive love of country that I speak of. It is, on a very basic level, an understanding of the cultural heritage I spring from that takes me back to Baishakh, or brings Baishakh back to me every year as it were. Having grown into youth in a land far from home, my initiation into Bengali culture, in that intellectual meaning of the term, was rather a delayed affair. Do I blame myself for it? Do I pin the responsibility for this belated realisation on anyone else? It would be easy doing that, but for now, let me rest back in the explanation that there are things that happen. And things that don’t. Way back in April 1965, in school, I was asked by my Urdu teacher to prepare a small speech in commemoration of the birth anniversary of the poet Iqbal. It took me, an eleven-year-old, close to a fortnight to prepare that speech. It was sheer nervousness that accompanied the eventual delivery, but the important lesson I learned on that occasion was that there was something called local or national literature. Iqbal was not part of my heritage, of course, but then again, he was, for he straddled the Indian subcontinent. And the Indian subcontinent, for those of us who have looked beyond the political divide of 1947, remains emblematic of the richness of collective cultural heritage.
   In that same year, something else happened to me, a spot in time which stirred the Bengali in me, if you can call it that. In the home of a Bengali couple in that city enclosed by mountain fastnesses, a pencil sketch of a venerable old man adorned the mantelpiece. I had little idea of who it was and all I recall is that the sketch had been done beautifully by a woman my mother knew as Jonaki. To me, to my siblings, she was an aunt who was noted for her long tresses which she wore in braids. In these forty one years I have not seen Jonaki, not once since the day I spotted the sketch of the old man in flowing white beard on that mantelpiece. It was Jonaki who found me watching the sketch intently. She it was who informed me, simply and in aunt-like fashion, that the man in the sketch was Rabindranath Tagore. It would take me quite a few more years to get into some depth about Tagore, but on that day I knew that Bengali literature was around, that it needed to be probed by schoolboyish philistines like myself. If that was the beginning, a very significant point in my understanding of my own culture was reached in the latter part of the 1960s, albeit through the gathering political movement in what we then knew as East Pakistan. My father, a trifle worried that my infatuation with the likes of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto might actually keep me away from my own roots in Bengal, took me aside one day, to let me know all there was to know at that stage about the presence of a man named Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. He was a great man, so said my father, and I should strive to know more about him. I did. And I thought — I still think that way — that my father had taught me a valuable lesson. On the day I met the great man, nearly two years before he would become the founding father of a free Bangladesh, the first question Sheikh Mujibur Rahman asked me was about my father. Why had he not come to the dinner? What did he do in the central government of Pakistan? It was a pleasantly eerie feeling. My father had told me about Mujib; and Mujib was now asking me about my father.
   In independent Bangladesh, in those early years, my initiation into the Bengali way of life was made easier by the contribution of Father Benjamin Costa, today principal of Notre Dame College. In 1973, having been selected for admission in the college, I approached him, to ask him if I could take Alternative English or Easy Bengali in lieu of the standard Bengali everyone else was taking in first year intermediate. My problem was a grave one. I had just come through Senior Cambridge pretty well, with Urdu as one of the subjects. And in Urdu I had done well. My Bengali at that point was limited to speaking it, ungrammatically, at home. I could not read or write the language. Father Benjamin looked at me coldly, before asking me if I were not a Bengali. Of course I was. Then you will take the standard Bengali like everyone else, he said in that firm tone of voice. That was it. I agreed, more from compulsion than from any enthusiasm. But I also knew there was to be no academic future for me, for I would never cross intermediate because of that imposition of Bengali. My future was doomed. Two years later, I whooped for joy when I went clear through Bengali and marched off to Dhaka University for admission in honours. All the way, I thanked the Lord and I thanked Father Benjamin. It felt happy to be a Bengali in the true sense of the term, a fact that was reinforced when I went through, some years later, the Bangladesh Civil Service examinations with Bengali language and literature being part of the curriculum. It is of course another story that I did not join the civil service.
   At this point in time and in my own life, it is the roots that matter. No, I am not the kind of ideal Bengali I would have liked to be. But every time Baishakh comes around, I think I know how it feels to be part of a culture, any culture, for culture is what keeps us going. The songs that break forth at the Ramna Batamul every Pahela Baishakh are for me a reminder that we in this country happen to be a fortunate band of people. That comes through the realisation that ours is a cultural nationalism, that what we define as Bengali nationalism is quite removed from the national perspectives other nations have set for themselves. It is when I remember this handhold I have on culture that I know what Tagore and Nazrul and Bankim and all those others mean to me. On Pahela Baishakh, I certainly do not look for perfection in men and women around me. But I do go on a search for profundity. Bengalis, I have always believed without the slightest trace of chauvinism, are a people who have regularly gone forth in search of knowledge. They read, they talk intelligently and they sing with deep amorous passion. What more can you want? And all those Bengali women? Nothing can gladden the soul in you more than the image of a Bengali woman with a teep on her forehead, with her long hair and the grace with which she wears that saree. On Pahela Baishakh, as on every other day, I go looking for the Bengali woman. She is not the person I see attired in shalwar kameez or shirt and slacks. She is a being I recall from my mother’s generation, from the times that produced Suchitra Sen across the frontier, in that other Bengal, and Kabori in our part of this ancient land.
   In my wanderings, I look for the Bengali who can speak his language well, without getting it entangled in a foreign tongue. Nothing can be more depressing than a Bengali spiking his language with a liberal use of English terms. Conversely, nothing can be more dreadful than an individual marring his use of English through peppering it with Bengali. It is thus that I listen with rapt attention to Professor Serajul Islam Choudhury and Sardar Fazlul Karim and Mustafa Nurul Islam. It was thus that I used to hear Abdullah al-Muti Sharfuddin. These are Bengalis, illustrious Bengalis, whose employment of the Bengali language has been superb to the point of being perfect. And they have spoken English without seeing any reason to bring in any Bengali phrase or term into their conversations. When Pahela Baishakh is here, I go back to the traditions which have shaped life in this land — the songs, the pithas, the sports — for ages. I stand before the pond at my village home and recall the day, years and years ago, when my grandmother took a dip in it, but not before instructing me to guard the vicinity lest any stranger come along. In those days, no strangers came along, for life was a serious, civilised affair. In those days, Bengali ministers and bureaucrats did not travel to our hamlets and villages covered in steamy western suits. In the times I speak of, it remained the ambition of Bengali young men and women to learn to speak good, properly pronounced Bangla, unlike the mangled language many of our eminent citizens use in public these days. When Pahela Baishakh arrives, it is good Bengali I strain to hear. In the music of Kanak Chanpa and Mita Huq, I think I spot the timelessness of Bengal. I remember Abdul Alim on the day; and I recall the songs of Rathindranath Roy.
   On Pahela Baishakh, the Bengali in me hammers away at the idea, ceaselessly, that the soul of Bengal, of Bangladesh, comes draped in modernity. You cannot drive a wedge between the Bengali ethos and the modern universe it is so much a part of.

Let us celebrate Chaitra Sangkranti

by Farhad Mazhar

The word ‘sangkranti’ implies the moment of transition that has no beginning and no end; the notion is not linear, but cyclical. The sun moves through space and every month crosses each of the signs of the zodiac, known as rashi, and completes twelve cycles of the year. So there is no ‘new’ year but return of the cycle, or the ‘chakra’. In the cyclic movement, every point is literally the end of the cycle as well as the beginning. There is no new beginning, and therefore no ‘past’ in the linear sense of the term. The word ‘sangkranti’ captures this notion of the eternal return of the ‘origin’, where the ‘origin’ cannot be located in any linear scale of time but in the omnipresent everywhere. If we draw a line we can locate a point where the line begins and ends. Any point could be the beginning. This is not the case with a circle. A point in a circle is both its origin as well as its end; it starts and closes a cycle.
   In Bangla the cyclical return of time is also known and experienced as ‘ritu’. The word ‘ritu’ is usually translated as ‘seasons’ and thus it loses the context of the cyclical notion of time. Perhaps we lose more in such literal translation. For example, the word ‘rituboti’ implies fertility for women. So the notion has very deep implications connected to the reproduction of the human species. Time is not merely any objective time outside human beings, but the eternal return of a unique being in the womb of the universe. Time presupposes this corporeal being, the human. This is the reason why Kamalakanta, the renowned philosopher of the Bhakti tradition, asked Kali, the Goddess of time: ‘If you claim to be time, the “mohakal”, how come you have the skulls of humans around your neck? Your presence presupposes the presence of human beings. It is true that human beings exist in time and are therefore perishable, but it is also true that any notion of time also presupposes the presence of human beings. There is no time outside human existence.’
   In contrast to new year or ‘nababarsha’, the celebration of ‘sangkranti’ is far more interesting, philosophically and culturally fascinating and could open up a new horizon in our efforts to construct us as ‘people’ with the distinction that could add diversity to the global community. The yearly solar cycle starts on the last day of the last month of the Bengali year. The cycle ends and begins on Chaitra Sangkranti. It is on the 30th of Chaitra. In Bengali culture, celebrating Chaitra Sangkranti is more important than celebrating Pahela Baishakh or New Year’s Day. In ‘sangkranti’ there is no notion of ‘new’ and ‘old’ year. Secondly, the moment of transition is very brief. So celebration to mark the transition can be as long as one wishes. In the villages of Bangladesh it could be a week or more, and may include the first day of Baishakh as well. Since the notion of time follows the seasonal pattern, it defies linearity. The cycle is not merely of time, it is also the return of the ‘ritu’, fertility and the ecological and hydrological cycles including the totality of human relations with the nature. There are various rituals, celebrations, cultural practices related to Chaitra Sangkanti. They vary from area to area, village to village, community to community. The cultural practice of Chaitra Sangkranti is diverse, albeit with some common elements. The time in ‘sangkranti’ comes back again and again and it is never a ‘new’ time. The last becomes the first again. If we intend to keep ourselves linked with the local practices, with the ‘bhab’ or the way of being in our culture, it is important that we understand ‘sangkranti’ more deeply and situate ourselves in the rich metaphors, imaginations and cultural practices of our people. So celebration of Chaitra Sangkranti is very important for us.
   Celebration of Chaitra Sangkranti is different in different areas. For example, in Dinajpur women clean the house in the morning on the last day of the month of Chaitra. They bathe and pour a pot of water on the Tulshi plant, so that it is refreshed. This is a symbolic action by women with regard to the Tulshi plant, since it is a sacred plant, but it could be with any plant. Even communal identification of Tulshi as belonging to Hindu practices could not stop Muslim women doing the same in sangkranti. During Chaitra, it is usually dry and the plants need water. By watering the Tulshi the people want to ensure that all the plants will have water. Women’s relation to nature and biodiversity is symbolically represented by the act of watering.
   The most important part of Chaitra Sangkranti is to cook 14 different kinds of shak (herb), preferably uncultivated. Shak cooking is very special and is full of diversity. The shaks have beautiful names: kolmi, lune, henchi, notey, dheki, kumra shak, shushni, lau shak, gima, etc. The farmers eat lau shak before going to the field for ploughing. Women and young girls go to the fields and collect shak, particularly those which are bitter in taste, such as the gima. This is eaten in the afternoon. On this day, fish, meat or eggs are strictly prohibited. It is a full vegetarian day for people of all religions, castes and classes. This is extremely significant from the perspective of ecology and biodiversity. Collection of uncultivated shaks is also a kind of ecological auditing during Chaitra Sangkranti. Unavailability of a particular plant is seen as an ecological crisis and sign of wrong agricultural practices. So vegetarianism in the Chaitra Sangkranti is not merely a ritual; it is deeply related to the practice of ecological auditing of the farming practices of rural Bengal.
   Another important aspect of Chaitra Sangkranti is to consume Paira-Chhatu (barley) or powder-cake made from millets. This is a particular way to appreciate certain plants that are drought-resistant and can save lives in times of famine.
   The first day of Baishakh is very important for farmers. In Narsingdi, for example, the farmers follow a certain tradition for planting seeds. Early in the morning, they go to the field with ‘bashi mukh’ (without washing their faces) and plough the land. Women clean the courtyard with cow dung. They cook a sweet dish with rice and molasses called ‘kheer’, but no milk is added. Women then bathe and bring paddy seeds to the cleaned courtyard and strew the paddy seeds on it. The wet seeds are then taken to the field for planting. After planting the seeds, they put the ‘kheer’ on banana leaves and take it to the farmland and put it in the centre. This is meant for birds, animals, insects, etc. The family cannot eat kheer before it is kept on the paddy field. A very rich and symbolic relation is constructed with all the realms of nature.
   In fact a detailed anthropological as well as philosophical research should be conducted to capture the diverse and innovative practices of the people in Sangkranti. The purpose of this article is to highlight that need with the warning that there is no so-called ‘fixed’ tradition and no homogeneity in cultural practices that can be identified as ‘Bangali’. Cultures and traditions are always changing and evolving. We should rather rediscover our diversity and shun all kinds of stereotyping and prejudices and free ourselves from the cultural politics of identities.
   Nevertheless there are certain principles that are fascinating and extremely important for our survival and prosperity. We need to highlight those principles and celebrate them as the conditions of our life and lifestyles in order to rebuild ourselves as a strong political community cognizant of our diverse cultural practices. From the various practices I am familiar with, I identify the following principles. These are:
   i. Celebrating the preservation of biodiversity through collection and cooking of 14 different shaks or leafy vegetables. The number 14 is symbolic; it indeed expresses the intention that the uncultivated food sources are conserved and we are preserving our biodiversity. Collection of 14 uncultivated shaks should not be difficult in a country rich in biodiversity.
   ii. Consumption of drought-resistant cereals is important, particularly because they are not our staples. Nevertheless they are extremely important in difficult times.
   iii. Consumption of bitter food is important for good health. Chaitra or mid-April is hot, therefore eating bitter herbs is good for health and prevents diseases.
   iv. Drinking sherbet made of green mango, and eating yoghurt, cheera, chhatu helps to ensure diversity in food and food security for our people.
   v. We must strictly avoid all meat, in order to celebrate the sanctity of life, at least for a day or two. Consumption of greens also symbolises that we are closer to sun. The greens are the source of energy transformed by the plants with the help of the sun by photo-synthesis.
   As long as we can generate principles from diverse practices, we can redesign our festivals that are appropriate for our time. I do not believe in traditions, but only in the future. I want to translate the ‘past’ or the ‘tradition’ to create a happy future. I am not against people celebrating Bangla Nababarsha and doing so in their own manner. However, we should rather regard the day as the continuation of the celebration of sangkranti and avoid copying the celebrations of New Year’s Day. Festivity is extremely important for our familial, social and political life. The grandeur of the rich and diversified cultural practices of the people will be a source of tremendous energy for our rise as a strong political community.
   Let’s celebrate Chaitra Sangkranti and re-invent our festivals that can re-unite us on a diverse cultural plane where everyone is invited with innovating ideas.

‘Pahela Baishakh is a landmark when we recognise our identity’

Serajul Islam Chowdhury
interviewed by Mubin S Khan

How have Pahela Baishakh celebrations changed in recent years, from what you have seen in your youth?
   It was during the British period and I remember going with my father to the village market where shopkeepers, especially the ones my father had direct interaction with, would treat us to sweets and other things. The celebrations were basically centred the markets where the old accounts were closed off, payments and dues settled, and new ‘halkhata’ [account books] opened.
   During the Pakistan period, not a lot of prominence was given to celebrating Pahela Baishakh. In the 1960s, Chhayanaut started its musical programme at ‘Ramna Batamul’, which inducted the middle class into the celebrations and also acted as a rebellion against the Pakistani rulers for stifling the Bengali culture.
   During 1969 and 1970, when the movement was its peak, ‘mela’ [fair] was introduced into the Pahela Baishakh celebrations. Before that, ‘mela’ was held more during religious festivals like the Eid and Muharram.
   That is how it has been since.
   
   Since the middle class began taking part in these celebrations, there have developed almost two distinct kinds of celebrations. What do you make of it and where does it stand now?
   For the peasantry it is more ingrained in the process of life and does not hold any philosophical meaning. It is basically the start of a business year.
   For the middle class though I see it as a place in which we stand. It is a psychological landmark in which we recognise our identity. And in this day of globalisation and in a time where we are more alienated from nature than ever before it is a time where we go back to our roots.
   It can, however, hold other meanings as well.
   In encountering the modern world we can use Pahela Baishakh as a platform to stand upon as a means to celebrate our language, culture and history.
   Pahela Baishakh is not only celebrated in Bangladesh but also in many places in the region, including South India, and can also be something with which we can bond with our regional neighbours.
   
   But do you not think that in this modern day and age, with production methods changing worldwide and losing direct relationship to nature, and the world following the Christian calendar, Baishakh’s main purpose has become redundant?
   That is not an individual problem of ours; it is a problem for almost all the different cultures in the world. The difference is to the degree with which we have sold ourselves and I am not only being nostalgic about the past in saying this. For example, in Thailand, a booming westernised economy, they are very particular about their New Year celebrations.
   
   So, why and how can we revive it?
   We should revive it because it gives us an individual identity and recognises our relationship to nature. Using our calendar as a platform, which is very strongly related to seasonal changes, we should activate our campaign against first world countries, who are primarily responsible for destroying nature and endangering our existence.
   There are, however, more reasons. Most of the landmark dates in our culture are related to mourning and this is a rare one which is related to celebrations. Pahela Baishakh should be used to bring urban city dwellers who virtually live slum-like existences, nowadays, to emerge out of their isolated, hostile, individualistic, profit-seeking attitude and step out to share, bond, cultivate a collective dream, etc. Essentially, I see this as framing a certain kind of attitude.
   Even in terms of economics, if we are to have a strong human resource, we need things like patriotism, togetherness and identity to build the right frame of mind. Pahela Baishakh essentially is also a rare celebration in our culture which is secular in nature.
   As for ways to revive it, one of the ideas is to shift the date of announcing our annual budget from July 1 to Pahela Baishakh. That way, there will be an institutional recognition of this day and business institutions can once again go back to opening ‘halkhata’ in the New Year.
   
   But would it not affect our stand in international business?
   It’s not as if the whole world does it on July 1. The United States does it sometime in August while India declares its budget sometime in April.
   There are essentially two celebrations that are directly related to Bangla culture, i.e. Pahela Baishakh and February 21. While Pahela Baishakh remains a historical and cultural celebration, Ekushey seems to have stolen the thunder when it comes to our language and literature.
   That is true. One of the reasons could be that Pahela Baishakh is more related to seasonal changes and socio-economic factors. Ekushey is an event outside the flow of life; it is a rare and extraordinary event that inspires literature. Pahela Baishakh is more tuned to the process of life. It is an everyday affair that has very little distance from our lives.
   
   How does Baishakh fare in Bengali literature?
   There is a lot of poetry but not much else. Two of our great poets, Rabindranath Tagore and Nazrul Islam essentially treat it as a landmark – of washing away the past and ringing in the new – and not much else. Nazrul does make use of Baishakhi jhar but apart from that you will not find much description. Baishakh’s destructive and creative powers are what have fascinated some writers.
   See, in our culture, the season we long for, is not Baishakh but Poush. It is the winter, which is very short, which has the greatest romantic connotation. The little description you find of Baishakh in literature is about its rudeness and severity. This is frankly not the best time of the year to feel poetic.
   
   And how about Baishakh’s relationship to politics?
   There hasn’t been much. During the Pakistan period it was used as a form of protest for a while though it would be wrong of me to deny there is slight political dimension with the rise of Islamic militancy. It is the only occasion were people from all religion inside the Bengali culture converge and stand in the way of trying to align religion to Bengali culture. This celebration, in terms of philosophy, is also very earthly in the sense that it has no gods or other worldly connotations to it. We badly need to cultivate this phenomenon in our culture.
   
   Apart from shifting the budget announcement date, can you think of any other way that we can strengthen these celebrations with?
   The budget thing is something is I feel strongly about but apart from that we can concentrate on stressing on our ‘mela’ culture. It is very much an old and local tradition; and more than its commercial value it has meant a festival, a form of entertainment over the years which needs to be preserved to safeguard ourselves from the ill-effects of modern life.

A carnival of revisiting, reinforcing identity

by Mashida R Haider

‘Oi notuner keton ure kal baishakhi jhor,
   Tora shob joyoddhoni kor, tora shob joyoddhoni kor’
   
   I remember as a child singing this song at the Pahela Baishakh function at school, year after year, in my awkwardly worn sari, not even moving my lips properly should my lipstick get smudged. The words themselves meant little, hardly more than sounds, and we lisped through most of it, but nothing outdid our gusto, as we revelled in the tune and the spirit of it all.
   Years later, when I went to my first Baishakhi Mela and older, more articulate and melodious voices started singing those much familiar words, I was moved. It was one of those early summer mornings, which was bound to get much hotter as the day progressed, if the hair sticking to the nape of your neck was anything to go by. But people didn’t seem to mind as they thronged Ramna Batamul, laughing and talking, jostling, and all very, very relaxed. The air was balmy, sweetened with the smell of pitha, girls getting their faces painted giggled at photographers, art students went around to women putting shidur on their foreheads, an elderly couple walked by holding hands, and young men wore wreaths of bakul on their heads. The singers sang those old words with gusto.
   Suddenly those words made sense. The kalbaishakhi jhor, so intrinsically reminiscent of Bangladesh, conjured up images of wind and flying leaves, blowing away the remnants of the previous year. It spoke of hope, of new beginnings. I felt jubilant — a new year had started.