Poush, the first of the two months in the Bangla calendar spanning winter, brings in festivity in the life of people living in rural Bengal. The people make traditional delicacies called pithas, made of new harvest of rice and date juice. Traditional fairs are also held at the time in places, featuring sessions of folk songs.
In one such festival, called Poush Mela in Bangla, organised by the Poush Mela Udjapan Parishad, hundreds of city residents gathered at Ramna Batamul in the capital on Friday. The organisation has been holding the fair for 12 years now.
Theatre activist Ramendu Majumder opened the two-day fair by lighting a traditional torch, usually made of stubbles in rural areas.
The fair featured pithas such as bhapa, chitai, patisapta, atrashi rangorosh, khirkuli, narkel nadu, tiler khaja and sabji piaju.
Honey was up for sales in many of the stalls. There were some stalls where people got their hands painted with henna.
The fair featured cultural programmes such as sessions of recitation, recitation from puthis or folk literature, staging of jatra and pala, sessions of folk songs and dances. Artistes from small ethnic groups also performed in the fair.
The organisers said that they had wanted to project the traditional rural affairs to new generation people.
Image Courtesy: Golam Mahbub
