Bengali New Year

It was just an ordinary day for most people. But this particular day was when the Bengalis celebrated their New Year’s Day; also called Poyla Baisakh, the day also marks the end of the harvest season.

Like all Indian festivals it is usually celebrated with song, dance and good food and also a mandatory visit to the temple. On this day no one is supposed to go hungry, hence community lunches and dinners are usually organised. Well, the Bengalis in my town celebrated the day in similar pomp at their Bengali Association premises. In the morning, people came to the association premises for prayers and to wish each other a “Shubho nobo borsho”, which in Bengali translates to “a happy new year”.

For the evening ceremony the Bengali Association joined hands with the Government of West Bengal for the organisation of that year’s Poyla Baisakh programme, due to which top musical artistes were sent from Calcutta (Kolkata) at the West Bengal Government’s expense. The artistes included Srikumar Chatterjee, son of legendary singer Ramkumar Chatterjee, with singer Kalika Prasad Mukherjee, and Rishi Chatterjee on tabla. All India Radio news reader Debashis Ghosh was the compère and co-ordinator of the show.

The format of the musical event was an informal chitchat, which in colloquial Bengali is known as “adda”. In a typical adda, the musicians on stage talk amongst themselves in a very informal manner on any topic that comes up. One of the highlights of the adda was the exploits of Sachin Karta, the legendary playback singer and musical director also known as the late S.D. Burman, and how he gave up his princely state of Bangladesh for music.

The concert ended around 10 p.m. and later around 750 people were part of the community dinner also called the Naisha Bhoj. The food was plenty, splendid and scrumptious.

~ by Prick on March 3, 2009.