Nabanna—the harvest festival
Saturday, 20 November 2010
Rice is part of Asian culture. From Japan to Bangladesh in Asia's rice belt, the festival brings joy and a new determination to overcome the odds of destiny. It was here on the fist day of Agrahayan, just when the Eid-ul-Azha the nation's major religious festival was going to take place.
In Bakultala of Charu Kala, the city's culture lovers started gathering in the early morning. There were pithas (the rice cakes) for breakfast. There were too chira and moori. People came in pyjamas, and punjabis, dhutis and sarees in their assertive Bengali identity that overcomes the religious divide.
Of course, there is rice shortage in the country. The queue before the open market sale rice trucks are very much testimonies of it. It is said, this year we could have a bumper harvest.
Poor people consummate nearly one third of what could be normal consumption. As I travelled in Takerhat in Madaripur district, in southern Bangladesh, I could see the face of hunger, the mal-nutritioned faces. This is a traditional ghatti or deficit area. Much of the land remains under water. On the other hand the highland is infertile. The tractors could plough it, but the poor farmers do not have ability to buy expensive tractors. The cow-drawn ploughs have nearly vanished. People were migrating to the city nearly penniless and mostly ending up in slums and crimes. Some of them are flying out of the country to far off Italy and Portugal. They are just a very few. You could see some newly built brick houses belonging to them.
I talked with a jute merchant in Takerhat. The jute price is high, 2500 takas a maund, triple that of rice. Many rice farmers are moving to jute cultivation.
But someone gave me some unique idea. I saw palm (tal) trees in the overstretch of fallow land. I was told that much of the fallow lands belonged to the Hindu farmers who had left the country after the partition. As it was declared enemy property, nobody cultivated any crop on them. They turned infertile. I could not confirm the authenticity of that observation. But I was told that social unrest prevails in south-west Bengal. A relative who had telephoned me, was surprised that I could go there without asking her.
The same relative had invited me to the rice festival at Bakul Tala. But she feared traffic jam and was not very positive that she could turn up there.
Bulk of Bangladesh specially its char (river islands) and haor (lakes) remain uncultivable. They constitute one third of the land area of this over-populated country. I was told that the foreign secretary had proposed to lease land to grow rice in Sub-Saharan Africa and import rice from there. But those Sub-Saharan countries themselves import rice from Vietnam and Thailand. I was told if the money needed to lease land in Sub-Saharan Africa could be invested in our own country, we could make the char and haor lands cultivable.
We have nearly tripled our food production since independence as our agriculture minister claimed. The credit does not belong to any particular regime whoever may get the medal. The credit goes to the whole people.
Not only rice production but wheat, maze and potato productions have gone up. Wheat production is expected to go up to nearly three million tonnes in next five years thanks to changed climatic conditions. Before the independence wheat production was nearly no-existent. We needed to import it from Pakistan and USA. Now we import it from Russia and the Russians have bad harvest. Many emphasise to achieve self-sufficiency both in rice and wheat production.
Maze production is now nearly one million tonnes. But if char lands could be brought under cultivation, it could be increased three-fold. This could give a boost to poultry production.
Late Wahidul Huq said, we do not only need music and song in nabanna but also sudehi, subeshi and sukanthi manush - people with good health, good dress and good voice.
Good harvest is key to that. And for that we hail the harvest festival — the Nabanna Utsab.
In Bakultala of Charu Kala, the city's culture lovers started gathering in the early morning. There were pithas (the rice cakes) for breakfast. There were too chira and moori. People came in pyjamas, and punjabis, dhutis and sarees in their assertive Bengali identity that overcomes the religious divide.
Of course, there is rice shortage in the country. The queue before the open market sale rice trucks are very much testimonies of it. It is said, this year we could have a bumper harvest.
Poor people consummate nearly one third of what could be normal consumption. As I travelled in Takerhat in Madaripur district, in southern Bangladesh, I could see the face of hunger, the mal-nutritioned faces. This is a traditional ghatti or deficit area. Much of the land remains under water. On the other hand the highland is infertile. The tractors could plough it, but the poor farmers do not have ability to buy expensive tractors. The cow-drawn ploughs have nearly vanished. People were migrating to the city nearly penniless and mostly ending up in slums and crimes. Some of them are flying out of the country to far off Italy and Portugal. They are just a very few. You could see some newly built brick houses belonging to them.
I talked with a jute merchant in Takerhat. The jute price is high, 2500 takas a maund, triple that of rice. Many rice farmers are moving to jute cultivation.
But someone gave me some unique idea. I saw palm (tal) trees in the overstretch of fallow land. I was told that much of the fallow lands belonged to the Hindu farmers who had left the country after the partition. As it was declared enemy property, nobody cultivated any crop on them. They turned infertile. I could not confirm the authenticity of that observation. But I was told that social unrest prevails in south-west Bengal. A relative who had telephoned me, was surprised that I could go there without asking her.
The same relative had invited me to the rice festival at Bakul Tala. But she feared traffic jam and was not very positive that she could turn up there.
Bulk of Bangladesh specially its char (river islands) and haor (lakes) remain uncultivable. They constitute one third of the land area of this over-populated country. I was told that the foreign secretary had proposed to lease land to grow rice in Sub-Saharan Africa and import rice from there. But those Sub-Saharan countries themselves import rice from Vietnam and Thailand. I was told if the money needed to lease land in Sub-Saharan Africa could be invested in our own country, we could make the char and haor lands cultivable.
We have nearly tripled our food production since independence as our agriculture minister claimed. The credit does not belong to any particular regime whoever may get the medal. The credit goes to the whole people.
Not only rice production but wheat, maze and potato productions have gone up. Wheat production is expected to go up to nearly three million tonnes in next five years thanks to changed climatic conditions. Before the independence wheat production was nearly no-existent. We needed to import it from Pakistan and USA. Now we import it from Russia and the Russians have bad harvest. Many emphasise to achieve self-sufficiency both in rice and wheat production.
Maze production is now nearly one million tonnes. But if char lands could be brought under cultivation, it could be increased three-fold. This could give a boost to poultry production.
Late Wahidul Huq said, we do not only need music and song in nabanna but also sudehi, subeshi and sukanthi manush - people with good health, good dress and good voice.
Good harvest is key to that. And for that we hail the harvest festival — the Nabanna Utsab.