Amid the flurry of news about myriad government and private sector-driven rural uplift works, those about the other sides of life remain largely unreported. A chief reason for their being unfocused can perhaps be a stark absence of activity in these areas. Let's turn, for instance, to recreation. Given the present drab and drudgery-filled rural life in the country, one cannot be blamed for terming the villages habitually averse to fun and frolicking. But Bangladesh takes pride in its age-old tradition of organising folk cultural events round the year. It's painful to note that these recreational activities have petered out. They have been replaced by newer types of leisure.
The segment most severely affected by this cultural apathy is festivals. These merry public events appear to have said goodbye to rural Bangladesh. To the younger generations, village festivals do not carry any meaning. Yet not long ago, vast rural swathes of the country would discover themselves filled with bashes during winter, especially after harvests. 'Nobanno' (harvest festival) and other seasonal events are disappearing fast to thrive in the cities. 'Jatra', the winter-night folk operetta, has long been a forgotten entertainment. The open-air, night-long sessions of songs and 'Kobir Lorai' (poetry-duels) and scores of such other musical events were once integral to our basic village life. No longer. These mind-cleansing and innocent entertainments have quite insidiously vanished from this country.
Still, communities cannot survive without recreational activities. In accordance with this universal rule, a few informal festivals these days provide the villagers with the necessary outlets for fun. The 'fish festival' is one of those. In fact, even the villagers directly involved with this fest may not know what they take part in every year is a veritable indigenous festival. In this painful dearth of merrymakings, people in larger numbers are annually coming up to join this day-long event. It occurs during the period of January-March, when monsoon waters begin receding from the low-lying water bodies. The country being swampy in geological nature, its rural areas are filled with scores of marshes and 'Beels' and 'Haors' (shallow lakes). These surviving low-lying lands could, somehow, manage to save themselves from encroachment by the grabbers.
Thanks to its chiefly deltaic nature, there are few villages in the country that do not have one or two water bodies. Even the characteristically arid regions have their share of ponds and ditches filled with rain water during monsoon.
The 'fish festival' comprises mainly catching fish by hand in the shallow water bodies and marshes. In this seemingly unusual activity, the villagers use fishing gear like small net-traps and indigenously woven cane or bamboo 'Polo'. The highly noisy fishing begins at dawn to close just before sunset. People of all ages take part in the sport, in which the skilled and luckier persons can manage to go home with big catches. At times, a mood of competition creeps in, adding to the mirthful nature of the event.
Post-winter fish catching by hand in knee-deep and ankle-deep water has been a normal spectacle in the country for ages. That they could now be singled out clearly these days has a lot to do with the absence of once-frequent, noticeable folk events. Moreover, in spite of the routine claim of the ever-increasing yields of fish, the nation continues to be blighted by insufficient intake of protein. Fish is one of the easy protein sources in villages. To the woes of the village folks, this source of protein has long been elusive.
Fishes are within the reach of people living close to rivers and canals. For those inhabiting drier areas, fish is something much longed-for. The improvised fish festivals thus meet many people's protein requirements. Their value in terms of providing entertainment, both joyous and fruitful, is also worth noting.
