Thoughts on Pohela Falgun & Valentine’s Day by our regular participant Moutushi Islam. Enjoy!
Love actually: Flowery as it can be?
The time of the year has come again to the singing and dancing, creating rainbows of saffron, yellow, and red, girls giggling, 
vibrant sarees by white punjabis, sudden glimpses of roses and hands, candies and chai- the festive ‘Bangalees’ are out again in the road, celebrating life, sharing their tales on the Pohela Falgun. Despite all our misfortunes either political or social or the climate catastrophe, we the Bengalis, have always been the agent of celebration. The recent popularity added to Pohela Falgun, is the Valentine’s Day, it’s the day to express one’s love to their loved ones, to the lover or the friend or the family. Be it the first day of the Bangla month of Falgun or the Valentine’s Day, like a long awaited lover of festivity, Bangladeshis are blowing their whistles loud, happiest and hopeful diving into the spirit of life.
Life actually: unveiling reality
It is past midnight the Valentine ’s Day and the hype seems to banish quickly! I sit by my table, try to look through the window, through the cold winter night, and try to smell the city Dhaka where I grew up thousands miles away. I see Dhaka is busy back to daily life. Dhaka is wallowing itself into everyday struggle. Dhaka surprises me. How bright and vibrant the Pohela Falgun or the valentine’s day this year might be for the city dwellers, it necessarily does not portray any single glimpse of the stern reality the country has been facing recently. Surviving yearlong political transitions and months old cyclone, is it an escape from the truth or silently overlooking responsibility or is it just the way we are? Living strictly in the moment and forgetting past and what the future may be?
Well apparently the pohela falgun or valentine’s day undoubtedly is a great relief for the Bangladeshis from endless debates, and internal turmoil they have been walking through for years. And I know many of my friends in Bangladesh believe that talking about love and gifts are more sensible and healthier than talking about cyclones, price hikes in the bazaar or the never ending political instability; and as I completely agree with my fellows, I also question what else we perceive from it. What February 14th can bring to the Bangladeshi lovers: thinking how love can rejuvenate life? Or for that matter may be reviving few old relationships or just checking with the current ones? Or should we go beyond the micro sphere, giving some of our thoughts to the city we live in, the country where we grew up? Should we think of how to make her more stable, more independent, and less corrupt? Should we think of our past and how the future would be for all?
Dear readers, my apology for moving away from my earlier notes on festivity to some strange topic, which has no association to the purity of love. But I find it difficult to talk only about love and rejoice when many of our people are barely surviving from post Sidr, or can not afford their staple meal, or majority are living below one dollar a day. Is it not time to get involved, to stand up for others until it knocks on my door? Stop veiling the reality? Or shall we keep digging so the war never ends?
I know this is not an ideal writing for something as gorgeous as Boshonto Uthshob or as serene as love. But dear readers let’s not forget that we are the ultimate inheritors of all the fortunes and misfortunes of this country.
February 19th, 2008 at 5:37 am
Moutushi..it’s understandable why we simply cannot express our happiness about Boshonto or Valentine’s Day without a sigh about our situation in Bangladesh..Our happiness is incomplete and unfulfilled if these situations are not overcome as they shadow our minds when we try to express joy for simple things.
It is difficult to fathom how a real change will be brought to our country but there is still hope as miracles still do happen. The traitors behind bars is a miracle and so we cannot give up hope as there is something better still to come. Bangalis will rise when the time is right as history proves…time and again….
February 20th, 2008 at 12:18 am
If I’m accused of veiling the reality of the country by celebrating Pohela Falgun & Valentine’s Day then I’m afraid I have to disagree. Having any sort of celebration does not in any way mean that we r forgetting the rest of the not so positive surroundings. Rather in the midst of sufferings, disadvantages and treachery we get these single days when we can push aside the negatives and celebrate our loved ones or the nature and the culture of the country.
A good thing to do would be to include the disadvantaged in the celebrations if we can rather than stop celebrating thinking of the negatives only.
March 14th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
I do agree with you Nazia. Our nation has zillions problems but it does not mean we will not dance and sing and celebrate. I do believe our nation knows how to smile while facing the odds.