Pahela Baishakh today

The Bangalees are celebrating Pahela Baishakh, the first day of Bangla New Year and one of the biggest universal festivals of the nation, today (Tuesday) on virtual media and using digital method staying at their respective homes.

The government has urged all citizens to do so in the wake of the deadly coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak.

Pahela Baishakh is one of the most colourful festivals through which the Bangalis bid farewell to the old year and welcome the New Year, but this year all programmes have been cancelled due to Covid-19 outbreak that has already claimed 39 lives in Bangladesh and nearly 1,15,000 across the globe.

The government gave directives to all to celebrate the festival in digital method to avoid public gatherings.

On this special occasion, people from all walks of life generally wear traditional Bengali dresses. Young women wear white sarees with red borders and adorn themselves with bangles, flowers, and tips, while men wear white pyjamas and panjabi or kurta.

Traditional Mongol Shovajatra will not be brought out this year from Fine Arts Faculty on the Dhaka University which becomes the main symbolic programme of the celebration as the authorities have cancelled it.

Business communities, especially in the rural areas, generally open their traditional ‘Halkhata’, new account books on that day while traders also offer sweets to customers.

President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina issued separate messages greeting the countrymen on the occasion of Pahela Baishakh.

They urged all to celebrate the Bangla New Year in digital method staying at homes to avoid public gatherings.

They wished peace, happiness and prosperity of the people and the country in the New Year.

The day is a public holiday.

Different national dailies have published colourful supplements highlighting the significance of Pahela Baishakh.

Some historians attribute the Bengali calendar to the 7th century king Shashanka, which was later modified by Mughal emperor Akbar for the purpose of tax collection.

During the Mughal rule, land taxes were collected from Bengali people according to the Islamic Hijri calendar. This calendar was a lunar calendar, and its new year did not coincide with the solar agricultural cycles.

Dhaka/Mukul