In celebration of likeness

While Thais and many of their neighbours celebrate the arrival of Songkran, the traditional New Year, with a good soaking, the people of Bangladesh welcome the start of a new solar year with song, colourful processions and fairs.

Known as Pohela Boishakh, the Bengali New Year coincides with the New Year of several Southeast Asian nations and is celebrated by people from all walks of life. In Bangladesh, it is marked on April 14 while in the Indian State of West Bengal and Bengali communities in other Indian states, it is celebrated on April 15.

“Before being posted to Bangkok, I had no idea how similar we [Bangladesh and Thailand] were, especially in terms of the Bangla New Year or Chaitra Sankranti, which takes place at the same time as the Thai Songkran celebration,” says Saida Muna Tasneem, Bangladesh’s ambassador to Thailand.

The day is synonymous with starting a new life, the ambassador says, and the Bengali people welcome this fresh beginning wholeheartedly with new clothes, usually in red and white. Businessmen and traders traditionally open halkhata – new accounting books – and many maintain the old practice of inviting their customers to share sweets and renew their business deals.

City dwellers eschew the usual breakfast of vegetables, lentils and paratha (fried flat bread) by feasting on panta bhat, a traditional platter of rice soaked in water with fried hilsa (fish), green chillies and onion.

In Dhaka, the beginning of another year starts at dawn, with a rendition of Rabindranath Tagore’s song “Esho he Baishakh” by singers of the cultural institution Chhayanat, under a massive banyan tree in Ramna Park, in the heart of the capital.

An integral part of the festivities is the Mongol Shobhajatra, a colourful procession organised by the students of the Faculty of Fine Arts of Dhaka University on a theme relevant to the culture and politics of the country.

Different cultural organisations and bands also perform on this occasion and fairs celebrating Bengali culture are organised everywhere from the narrow streets of the capital to the smallest villages in rural Bangladesh.

In Dhaka for this year’s Pohela Boishakh, Thai Culture Minister Vira Rojpojchanarat attended the main celebrations at Ramna Park and watched the colourful Mangal Shobhajatra at Dhaka University. 

“It’s amazing to see people from all walks of life and all income groups gathering at the same place and the same time to celebrate their New Year,” he enthused. 

Surprisingly his visit to Bangladesh was the first of its kind by any culture minister from Thailand or its fellow Asean nations. 

And the similarities between Bangladesh and Thailand do not end with their New Year festivals. The two countries also share commonalities in their cultural and religious practices, the arts, scripture and language.

For example, both the Bangla and Thai languages absorbed polysyllabic Sanskrit and Pali words when Brahmanism and Theraveda Buddhism were infused, Tasneem says.

“We share words like raja [monarch], raja kumari [royal daughter], and raja montri [minister],” she says.

Yet for all these similarities, the people of the two nations remain largely ignorant of each other. Now, with the proposed signing of a new cultural agreement, that’s about to change.

The latest cultural-exchange agreement signed between Thailand and Bangladesh was in 1979 and was designed to promote cooperation in the fields of culture, science, and education.

During his visit, Vira and his counterpart, Bangladesh’s Culture Minister Asaduzzaman Noor, agreed that a fresh cultural cooperation agreement is required to help boost ties between the two countries and a memorandum of understanding (MoU) is expected to be signed before the end of this year.

The two ministers covered a range of topics in their discussions and have broadly agreed on a cooperation agreement that will cover archaeology, archaeological site restoration, museums, exhibitions, sculpture, painting, animation and movies.

“Once the MoU is signed, we will take turns to hold Thai and Bengali festivals in the two countries to allow our people to access the culture of both countries,” Vira explains.

Tasneem adds that under this cultural cooperation agreement both the countries will be expected to take necessary steps to create better understanding of their mutual culture among both Thais and Bangladeshis.

The objective is to promote cooperation in the field of art, literature, music, visual and performing arts, and other activities of a cultural nature and will include the exchange of artists as well as training. Institutions of both countries will also exchange information on cultural events such as seminars, contests, conferences, colloquia, round tables, festivals and other forms of cultural activities.

“Such exchanges and events can only benefit both our cultural sectors,” Vira says.