Feature

We took the escalator to the 7th floor. The big hall was decorated and at the entrance it was written Baishakhi Mela 2007. Now that came as a big surprise to me. I had never visited an indoor Baishakhi mela. It was bit different than what used to take place in the large field at Dhanmondi. The stalls were impressive. There were stalls of cloths, dresses, bangles and so much more.
We kept looking around and the more I looked, the more I got convinced that something was very different about this fair. Of course it took place inside a shopping mall, thus the scorching heat could not make us sweat and make us thirsty. But then what was it? Something was missing in the fair.

Suddenly I realized that there was no life in it. The baishakhi mela that we used to have at Dhanmondi was certainly bigger than this. In spite of the heat and the possibility of having a heat stroke, people form all corners of the city would go to the fair. But in this indoor fair, there were not many people. Most of the stalls had goods imported form other countries. I passed two sari stalls, and none of the stalls had local cotton saris. The pottery stalls had things that were not made here.

Standing there I felt alienated. When I was a child, every year I would throw tantrums for my mother to take me to the fair. The crowd, the stalls, the nagordolas fascinated me. The best part was at one corner there was a pottery stall where there would be some potter making pots of clay right in front of the people. People could order goods of any shape and size. Most important of all, almost all the goods were local. And one could actually perceive the patches of his heritage there. People from different districts would bring in their goods. The fair used to be a representative of our heritage. It used to have our goods and not borrowed products. For last few years this big baishakhi mela did not tale place in the Dhanmondi field. An event which used to be an integral part of our culture has taken its refuge in the halls of the big malls. All the enthusiasm, joy and color are lost somewhere.