The Promise of Pahela Baishakh

The promise of Bengali New Year
Pahela Baishakh stands as the time tested traditional festival of the Bengalese making us all get united irrespective of our caste, creed, colour, religion, opinions and ideals which actually we cannot maintain all the year round in other national forums and arenas. The sky rocketed price hike, on mass food adulteration, insecurity in public and social life, frequent power failure and water crisis fail to diminish the spiritual pleasure of the Bengalese on this day. The ‘hilsha’ fish with water rice has become scarce to escape the tradition; still it cannot deter many to enjoy this traditional dish stretching from village to the capital city. Actually, this day is a promise to make us united forgetting the past the smaller clouds gathered around us. The whole country observers the day with due solemnity and arranging various cultural programs .I can still remember how I went to Baishakhi Fair in our local market with my friends and cousins. It was quite a pleasant and different day and situation from the normal ‘hat day’. Playthings of various kinds and traditional foods flooded the fair inviting the attention of young and teenagers. Still the fair holds as usual. We used to go to the fair and buy things according to our choice. This unmixed joy still haunts me and I feel a feeling of nostalgia.
The observance of ‘Pahela Baishakh’ in the city gives a different momentum. It gathers people from all walks of life at Ramna Batamul, Bangla Academy and TSC. They huddle together, enjoy the ‘ dawning songs’ of ‘ Chayanat’ at Ramna Batamul. They huddle together and try to share their joys forgetting the miseries and sorrows of city and family life for the whole day. Really participating in different programs of the day serves as a tonic which keeps them vibrant , smiling and cheerful. People move and run huddling their bodies but not quarrel or clash with each other. But alas! The same participants and students get divided in other programs of politics and social gathering to show the enmity against each other in its ugliest form making us surprised. Viewing from this point, we can say that Pahela Baishakh serves as a symbol of ‘national unity’. We should promise that this moral teaching of the day must be reflected in our other national forums and programs.
We have already walked quite a long way of forty-one year since our independence through a bloody struggle. Still the dream of our independence has not been materialized in the true sense of the term. Economic emancipation for the overwhelming majority has not been achieved .With the passage of time the gap between the haves and have-nots is getting widened. The number of ultra-poor is increasing. It is true that the city is witnessing many high rise and sophisticated buildings. It is equally true that these modern buildings proclaim their sophistical view mocking at the quickening race of slums which make room for the hapless creatures streaming from the rural Bangladesh due to chill –penury, insecurity, unemployment, village politics, river- erosion, natural calamities and local mastans’ disturbance. They now embrace the life of day laborers’ in the city to add to civic problems. Making the dens of criminals they live in the slums. Some even are involved in flesh trade and trafficking and illegal drug business. The children who are born in the slums are left to the vacuum of uncertainty. Being pure Bengalese they don’t know the meaning and significance of Pahela Baishakh. They remain far away from enjoying and learning the significance of Pahela Baishakh.
My heart aches and becomes frustrated to see the faces of the streams of rootless children who don’t have any address to say, any better means to survive, no promise to receive education. They start stealing food to survive and the jubilant crowd beat them mercilessly without giving any consideration to their right to live in this society. These children get involved in the gang of hardened criminals to commit drug peddling, become drug addicted without knowing its pernicious aspect and effect, girls become prostitutes selling their malnourished bodies. What does this ‘New Year’ promise for them? What contribution have we made for them in our individual level? What the state has really done for these ‘homo sapiens’? What does this masked society tell them on this New Year day?
Do they really have any new year? All the days and years probably remain equally bleak for them. What is this New Year festival shows us? Still the nation has been politically divided into two and cannot amalgamate over the issue of very basic national issues. The millions of commoners want economic emancipation, social security, real freedom in individual, social and state life. They want real freedom of speech, a better future for the austerity. But will the divided political culture and force make them happen? Will the destructive politics of the country show us a new path to go ahead on this New Year’s Day? Let us hope for the best. Let us promise to reflect the real spirit of Pahela Baishakh in our individual and national life.
Md. Masum Billah Email: mmbillah2000@yahoo.com