Winter comes with precious gifts for people

The winter in this part of the world is not particularly cruel. This year, however, belying the met office prediction, the winter has become chillier than it has been over the years. Unlike the countries in the western hemisphere and in the polar regions where mercury dips below the 0 degree Celsius, snow falls and blizzard makes a hell of a life, this part of the world experiences more or less numbness if temperature hovers around 10-15 degree Celsius. The poor and low-income people who cannot manage enough warm clothes to fend themselves against the biting cold but have to go out for work are the worst sufferers.
Otherwise, the winter stores rich dividends in every way possible for the citizens not troubled with pecuniary concerns. People may recoil in snugness but Nature adorns herself with colours and vivacity as if extra energy and spirit exude from its bosom. It is the time of gastronomical delight for people because Nature becomes more generous to produce an array of veggies not available in other seasons and even if available courtesy of modern farming, lack the aroma, flavour and taste. The harvest of aman paddy over, farmers enjoy a breathing space before they get prepared for the next crop.
Even the small farmers have a stock of grains in their barns and no wonder, the winter provides for the right occasion for preparation of traditional cakes. Such cakes would have been a poor thing but for the date molasses in its delectable taste. The taste bud gets further excited and pampered by the addition of milk to a number of tasty treats of cakes. Even the cows give more milk in the winter because they have abundant fresh grass to eat at this time of the year.
To make the season more enjoyable, local fish are available with water receding from canals, beels (swamps) and other small water bodies. So, traditional fish fairs are arranged at designated venues of several areas in the country. It is more like a fish festival for villagers of surrounding villages. Before some of the fairs are held, newly married daughters and son-in-laws are invited to visit fathers' or father-in-laws' homes. Son-in-laws and father-in-laws are locked in a competition to buy the bigger and the choicest fish. Apart from such fish fairs, collective fish catching in a common water body is another festive occasion rural Bangla celebrates.
Amid the dwindling native fish species, these joyous traditions have survived as yet but how long they can do so is questionable. Current nets and even more dangerous China duari nets that suck in the smallest fries in it are causing grave harm to local fish stocks. When fries, fingerlings and brood fish are caught so rapaciously, it will be a matter of time when only cultured fish will make Bangalee dishes. Drives against such nets for burning those prove an eyewash. The need is to plug the sources---production in factories and import from abroad. In many localities once known for a surfeit of local fish species, the young generations do not even know names of fish apart from a handful.
The rural Bangla cannot embark on a time travel but surely there is still time to save the local stocks of fish, chicken and many of its specialties. The winter in villages could not be imagined without date juice and preparation of molasses. Not many villages have been able to maintain their date orchards or sporadically scattered date trees because there is none to extract juices from trees if there are any. With the loss of date trees, they now have to depend on adulterated molasses available in local markets.
Yet another prominent feature that used to make the winter a truly winter is the jatra (traditional village opera). Now this cultural endeavour has waned abruptly. In cities there is a naive attempt to revive all such cultural affairs but because of the venues and absence of the right ambience, those fail to flourish. Bonfires in villages are a little known religio-cultural form observed on the last day of Poush. Its counterpart seems to be in a way the 'sakaine' or 'hakrine' observed in old Dhaka. The bonfires used to be followed by bull running the next day.
However, cities and towns have also introduced a lovely feast for eyes in the shape of flower shows. In the winter mother Nature bestows all its colours on the foliage of flower plants to produce all kinds of flowers in grandiose hues and brightness. In no other seasons, flowers are at their most enchanting and magical best as they are in the winter. The winter is not merely dull and drab here but one that brings out the best in terms of gifts from Nature itself.