Poila Baisakh: New flavour, old fervour

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal"><span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Poila Baisakh, 1381. Writer Shankar hops off the tramcar at Calcutta''s boi-para College Street. He is keen to join the literary adda. In distant Bombay, singer Manna Dey adjusts his panjabi (kurta) buttons, humming Ek Boisakhe dekha holo dujonaye. Arati Mukhopadhyay and he will belt out duets at Bengal Club that evening.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Poila Baisakh, 1412.Shankar has received invites from a few synthetic adda sessions. The stimulating ones with Premendra Mitra, Bimal Mitra, Samaresh Basu and Sanjib Chattopadhyay have long ceased. Manna Dey has shifted to Bangalore. But the cultural evenings petered out before that.</span><br /><br />These aren''t anecdotes from a history book. The events of 1381 happened only three decades ago. The other is about Friday. The dates referred to are from the Bengali calendar. Year 2005 is 1412 in the Bengali almanac. Never mind if you''re a Bong and didn''t know it. Not many care. "Who bothers about such trivia? It''s Bengali New Year and that''s all that matters," said Rudra Kishore Sen, executive at an MNC fast-food chain in Delhi. After office, Rudra plans to put on new clothes and take his mother to Chittaranjan Park for a get-together with probashi Bengalis.<br /><br />Naba Barsha albums are passé. Manna Dey, who has cut many such albums, knows only too well. He will spend the day with wife Sulachana. A Malayalee, she too will celebrate her new year on Friday. For lunch, it will be a combination of Bengali and Keralite cuisine. Narkol chingri (prawns in coconut gravy) will be on the menu.<br /><br />The scenario is no different in Kolkata. New Bengali titles are now published during Boi Mela — the Kolkata Book Fair. "Perhaps, the only tradition that survives is the halkhata (new trade accounts). Of course, the well-to-do go to fancy restaurants," Shankar felt.<br /><br />Uddyalok and Moon Moon Roychoudhury of Jadavpur plan to dine out but that''s not the only agenda for the day. In the morning, they will queue up at Kalighat to offer pujas.<br /><br />The flavour of Poila Baisakh may have changed over the years, but the fervour hasn''t.<br /><br /><br /></div> </div>