2022
Bangladesh and a few Indian states celebrate Bengali New Year 1426 on 14th April in every year. It is a huge celebration with festive mood irrespective religions, colors, race, tribes. All spheres of life is participated in this celebration. Men, women and children do shopping on the eve of the day. Women wear traditional white and red saree and men wear punjabi. There are a lot of cultural programmes arranged by various groups and organisations. The day is started with Chayanat programme at Romna Batamul in Dhaka in the early morning. There is a theme song (Boishaki sangeet) of the Bengali New Year which was written and composed by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Thakur. You can listen this beautiful song from this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkadnQIyMuo .
As this was a public holiday, I took my family to CRH Hill, Chittagong which is a nice place surrounding with hundreds years old banyan trees. It is mainly the headquarter of Eastern Railway, Bangladesh. It was built during British period in the sub-continent. The main cultural event started at DC Hill but over the few years, CRB Hill, Shirishtala is becoming another popular place for people gathering in the Bengali New Year Day. Several organisations arrange different cultural programs at CRB Hill such as folk songs, country songs, drama, reciting poems etc. As April is the hottest month of the year in Bangladesh, we decided to visit CRB Hill at afternoon. We reached the place at 5pm and we saw thousands of men, women and children were enjoying the cultural events. Every one wear Boishaki colorful dress. It looked amazing and we became the part of the celebration.
We spent two and half hours and took some pictures. I was very happy because my daughter was enjoyed the place so much that was my big satisfaction. I always try to attach my daughter with our own culture because it is our root so as a parents, it is our responsibility to know the generation about our culture and heritage. We ate Bengali foods like Mithai (sweets), Jal Chanachur (Spicy dried ingredients), Pitha (rice cake) etc.
As the security was good, people came here with numbers to celebrate the Bengali new year. The place is covered with old banyan trees that keeps it much cooler. The best thing was to see the happy faces of the people who were enjoying their time with family and friends. Once the sun was down, the program was called off. People started to move to the restaurants for taking dinner with family. Some people returned to their home with happy moments.
I would like to share some photos with you:
I wish my all Bengali people a happy new year. Hope new year will bring happiness and peace in every life.
Thank you.
