New Year Vignettes

Photo feature by Sazzad Ibne Sayed and Mumit M.

Baishakh heralds a renewal, a revival of the colours of the rainbow playing in the soul. Here in Bangladesh, it is a time for a return to old joys and ancient stirrings of the heart. All across the hamlets and towns of this land, it is that profusion of colours, in the literal as also figurative sense of the meaning, which takes hold of life. In the village market, in the town square, in hearths and homes, the festival which breaks forth is redolent of good cheer. There is that certain music, that soft murmur of song which touches the Bengali inasmuch as it brings alive the sheer energy of living in all other men and women peopling this land of flowing rivers and pulsating poetry.

You glimpse all that -- and much more -- when the birds begin to chirp with intimations of a Baishakh dawn.

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