Agrahayan has arrived. The fields are a blend of yellow and green, and farmers weave dreams in the golden paddy. Within days, courtyards will be filled with the rich smell of new rice.

The first of Agrahayan means a festive mood in Bengali homes. To keep this age-old tradition alive, the country's farming families have long marked the day as the Nabanna festival.

Nabanna, at the heart of an agriculture-based civilisation, has been part of Bengali life since time immemorial. The festival is held with rice from the new paddy. In Hindu folklore the day is called the annual auspicious day. Villages ring with the joy of meals of new Aman rice with many dishes and festivals of pitha and puli, and married daughters are brought home to their parents' houses.

In some places it is customary to offer prayers and give shinni at the mosque before tasting rice from the new paddy. Hindu farming households hold puja with great fanfare. Nabanna is the biggest of the Hindus' "thirteen festivals in twelve months", and twelve pujas are observed around it. They offer the new rice to ancestors, deities, crows and other creatures and serve it to relatives, after which the head of the household and the family eat the new Nabanna with new molasses. In Hindu folk belief, the food reaches the souls of the dead through the crows; this offering is called "kakbali".

Although Aman lags behind Boro in yield and production, its output is rising every year. In the words of a folk poet: "Agrahayan has come, the heart dances with joy / the farmer sharpens his sickle / sickle in hand, snip-snip-snip, the farmer cuts the ripe paddy..." Right now the early Aman harvest is being celebrated in different parts of the country, and harvesting and threshing are in full swing, especially in the north.

As in the villages, formal Nabanna celebrations began in the capital, Dhaka, especially from 1998. The Jatiya Nabanna Utsab Udjapan Parishad (National Nabanna Festival Celebration Council) celebrates the festival every year on the first of Agrahayan. Today, 1 Agrahayan, as every year, a Nabanna festival has been organised at Bakultala in the Faculty of Fine Arts of Dhaka University.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.