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Published : 14 Apr 2024, 02:48 AM
Bangladeshis are all geared up to greet Pahela Boishakh, the first day of the Bangla calendar, with a renewed message for the victory of humanity.
They will sing “Eso He Baishakh” and other songs at programmes celebrating the arrival of the Bangla New Year 1431 on Sunday.
With people decked up in vibrant colours and painted cheeks, cultural organisation Chhayanaut will start its curtain-raising event at dawn at Ramna Batamul in Dhaka with raga Ahir Bhairav on flute.
The theme of this year’s programme is “light the lamp within and do away with self-centredness”.
“At dawn this New Year, we will sing the song of people’s victory, not consumerism, not selfishness,” its General Secretary Laisa Ahmed Lisa said.
This year’s programme will feature 11 group songs and 15 solo performances, as well as readings and recitations.”
At the traditional Mangal Shobhajatra procession on the Dhaka University campus, evocative masks will be on display with customary zeal and fervour.
Traffic will be regulated in the Dhaka University and Ramna Park areas. There will be diversions in some roads leading to these areas.
This time the festival has arrived just after Eid-ul-Fitr holidays, with most yet to return to big cities like Dhaka from their hometowns and villages.
“Maybe there will be fewer people in Dhaka. But it will double the joy of ringing in the New Year through celebrations at home,” said Professor Nisar Hossain, dean of Dhaka University’s Faculty of Fine Arts that organises Mangal Shobhajatra.
The law-enforcing agencies have beefed up security in these areas, keeping in mind that the Chhayanaut function came under a deadly bomb attack by Islamist militants in 2001.
The threat to hurt the secular spirit of Pahela Baishakh is nothing new. Before independence, Bengalis used the Bangla New Year celebrations as a political tool to protest against Pakistan’s attempts to destroy the nation’s culture by banning Tagore songs.
President Mohammed Shahabuddin and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina greeted Bangladeshis living at home and abroad on the occasion.
Shahabuddin urged all to build a happy and prosperous “Smart Bangladesh” free from hunger and poverty by embracing the liberal spirit of Pahela Baishakh.
Hasina, in her message, called upon all, irrespective of religion and caste, to wake up with new joy forgetting the sorrows and failures of the past year.
