Bangladesh Consulate marks ‘Poila Boishakh’ fest

Syed Mussarat Khalil Saudi Gazette JEDDAH — The Bangladesh Consulate General here celebrated the first day of a new Bengali year “Poila Boishakh” at Bangladesh International School-English Section (BISJ-ES) here recently. Chief guest A.K.M. Shahidul Karim, consul general of Bangladesh, inaugurated the colorful and musical night of the new year festival at the school premises. More than 3,000 Bangladeshi expatriate families, representative of leading Bangladeshi social and cultural forums, artists, singers, consulate and school staff including Mohammed Altaf Hossain, consul (labor) and Mohammed Abdul Baqui, principal BISJ-ES, attended the Bangladeshi new year festival. Speaking to Saudi Gazette noted Bangladeshi journalist and TV channel representative Saeed Rumi said: “First of all, I would like to wish everyone a very happy new year.” Rumi added: “We are marking the new year in the month of April, because the beginning of a new year as per the Bengali calendar falls on this month and I would like to tell you a little about that what is Poila Boishakh? “Boishakh is the first month of the Bengali calendar, and ‘poila’ stands for ‘first’. So, Poila Boishakh literally means the first day of the month of Boishakh, thus, marking the beginning of a new year.” Rumi added that as per the Bengali calendar, we are starting year 1423 today. He said in the Gregorian calendar, Poila Boishakh falls either on April 14 or April 15 every year. It also often coincides with the new years of Tamils, Oriyans, Assamese, Malayalis and Manipuris. Another participant at the event said that the most important part of any Bengali festival is food. Poila Boishakh, too, is celebrated with an assortment of delicacies, but the traditional Bengali new year dish is Panta Ilish. Panta Ilish is basically soaked leftover rice and fried Hilsa fish. It is served with chopped onions, green chilies, dal and sometimes fried Shutki (dried fish). He said there are a lot of other dishes that you can get your hands on around this time of the year: there’s Dhokar Dalna (a curry of steamed lentil cakes), Patishapta (sweet crepe stuffed with jaggery). Men, women and children enjoyed the music, shopping choice of colorful dresses, delicious food and sumptuous house decoration items.