Fine Art Instt preparing for Pahela Baishakh celebrations
VognoDuut1094
Abdullah Juberee
The students and teachers of the Institute of Fine Art of Dhaka University
are making preparations for celebrating Pahela Baishakh, the first day of
Bangla New Year, 1414 amid much enthusiasm.
The institute premises have turned into a zone of workaholic students and
teachers who are working hard to make the festival successful.
The students said they had started taking preparations for the New Year
celebrations with colour and festivity as the people in the past few years
had gone off the boil in fear of violence.
They have planned a two-day celebration this year. The programmes include
bringing out of mangal shobhajatra (a procession of good wishes) on April 14
and a soiree of folk songs and a jatra on April 15.
Along with the musical programme of the Chhayanaut at Ramna Batamul the
festive procession from the Institute of Fine Art has become a tradition in
welcoming Bangla New Year.
Characters from Bengali folk culture will be carried by the marchers and
the students have selected elephants and horse symbolising the hidden
strength, boldness and spirit of people especially villagers across the
country. Apart from these, masks of owl and fish, and other motifs are also
being prepared.
Some two hundred students of the institute are working every day painting
clay plates and T-shirts with local motifs, making masks of different birds
and animals, painting watercolour, and selling those for fundraising to meet
the expenses of the festival.
In a new addition, the students this year are painting T-shirts for fund
collection and works by the teachers are also put on sale.
A number of teachers, including Abdush Shakoor, Farida Zaman and Shishir
Bhattacharya, have also painted watercolour works and those have been put on
sale for fundraising. The prices of each work ranged between Tk 2,000 and Tk
5,000.
The clay plates, which the students dub 'mangal sara', are being sold
between Tk 100 and Tk 500 and the T-shirts between Tk 100 and Tk 200.
The estimated expenditure for the New Year celebrations is Tk 1.5 lakh
and the institute authorities will contribute a portion of the expenses and
the rest will be collected from selling the souvenir, artefacts, said Tapas,
a student painting clay plates on the institute's porch.
The celebration is usually organised by the alumni and students, but a
number of alumni avoided the past three celebrations, saying that the
atmosphere at the institute was not conducive to a festive occasion due to
political interference.
But this year representatives from most of the student organisations are
working for the festivity forgetting their rivalry. The young teachers are
supervising the preparations.
No sponsorship has been taken for this year's celebration. The past two
celebrations were sponsored by corporate houses, which got criticism from a
section of society, and many of the students and teachers were against the
sponsorship as it diverted the festival's main goal.
On the second day of Baishakh, the students of the institute will stage a
jatra, Bibi Sultana, on the institute premises. There will also be an
evening of baul songs at the institute's Bakultala.
The students said they were trying to arrange puppet show and install a
big wheel and merry- go-round during the celebrations.
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