Nabanna

Nabanna (New Crop) is a Bengali harvest celebration usually celebrated with food and dance and music. It's a festival of food; many local preparations of Bengali cuisine like pithe are cooked and offered.

Celebration

The festival is celebrated with mela which are called nabanna mela. Its one of the numerous festivals that gave the name "baro mase tero parban" (thirteen festivals in twelve months ) to the land okjkf Bengal. Although the nabanna parban is somewhat different from other ones since its not connected to a religion like Ratha Yatra. The villagers and locals from both the major religious groups join the festival with equal participation. There are also several fertility rituals which make the festival truly a harvest ritual. The festival gets a lot of support from the creative army of Bengali culture. Several poets, musicians baul and painters flock in into such mass gatherings. There is a famous play written on nabanna by the play writer Bijon Bhattacharya which depicts the sad incident of the great Bengal Famine of 1943.^[1]

Below is a description found on one such mela website.

"people from several villages of Howrah and even from other districts of West Bengal come here. People not only come to visit the Mela. In addition, they participate in many cultural programmes and competitions like 'Pithe Making' (Preparation of different sorts of Bengali Cakes), Seat-and Draw, Senior Citizens' Walking Competition etc. An "Art-Camp" may attract creative minded people where artists from different states will participate. Some rare items of rural Bengal as "Dhenki" (Old-style Domestic Rice Mill), paddy of different varieties directly from the farmers' house are to be exhibited in the Exhibition ground. You can taste some delicious Bengali dishes like Pati-sapta, Payesh (the latest addition is 'Vegetable Payesh'), Jilipipi (not Jilipi) etc. during the festival. Bengal's time-honoured culture and heritage will be presented to you in forms of Baul song, Chhou-dance, Jatra, Tarja, Kobi-gaan etc. These artiste come from different parts of the state to perform their talent and expertise in front of thousands of appreciative gatherings. Moreover, you can refurbish your collection of folk arts from the 'Exhibition-cum-sale' stalls of handicrafts made by rural artisans." ^[2]

Social and Cultural effects

A shot from historical performance of 'Nabanna"

Several dance and music forms have grown out of the ritual accompanied with the festival. Examples will be chhou, bihu etc. Also the name nabanna is associated to several rural welfare projects and banks.^[3][4]. It has also been associated with the IPTA movement of Bengali theatre. the path-breaking production "Nabanna" of the Indian People's Theatre Association IPTA in the 1940s, has been a motivating force in the left tilted political approach of the next few decades on the stage ^[5] where luminaries like Utpal Dutt will glow with brilliance.

See also

• Pithe
• Chhou
• Baul

References

1. ^ Ritwik Ghatak notes
2. ^ Nabanna Mela
3. ^ http://www.apit.gov.in/DOST/egovernance/ictpr/ictpr.nic.in/baduria/partners.html
4. ^ ICT R&D Grants Programme for Asia Pacific — Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme
5. ^ The theatre and class contradictions