ALL the new years were around – the Marathi “gudi padwa,” the Bengali “pohela boishakh”, the Malayali “vishu” and the Bihari “bihu” and a few more…the various states of India celebrate by the lunar or solar calendar.
I’ve noticed that the Bengali community is indeed a very special community, undoubtedly influenced by the fact that Calcutta was the headquarters of the erstwhile British East India Company during the British Raj colonial years…I always find my Bengali friends at once traditional and more cosmopolitan in their outlook than say my friends from other states like Gujarat or Maharashtra, but this is a personal experience, okay.
This is to say the Bengali community in Goa really likes to keep the community spirit alive and it’s that time of the year when spring is here (never mind that is in a hurry to turn to sweltering summer, I wonder how much the fires in Israel and Ukraine are contributing to global climate heat near and far) and in Goa at least I got invited to join in some of the new year revelry, break bread with at the “nabo barsho” annual get together of the Ganga Zuari Academy do which happened on Sunday, April 13.
One and all were invited, meaning also family and friends of the Bengali community who may or not be GZA members. I think I’m still a GZA member! And persuaded the hubby that we should go wish everyone a happy new year…we were becoming very anti-social, etc.

So we went and it proved to be a most uplifting and heartwarming evening with lots of singing, good liquor and soft drinks, the ICG Spices laying out an agreeable dinner …which featured bhendi do piazza, a favorite I hadn’t tasted in quite a while and I was happy to make a meal of it along with the “ma ki dal” and crisp tandoori roti.
It was a musical evening with the very vivacious Dr Prafulla Rajput Roy with the help of other young folk of the community putting in some hard work of preparing posters and banners and organizing the who should sing, everyone who wanted to sing, young and old! The young ones were of course serious about seeking a future in a musical calling, while the adults of course just sang for the fun of it…there was fun tidbits recounted, comedy, mimicry of canines, and of course more songs of nostalgia than anything else…old Hindi numbers, some Bengali rabindrasangeet, Mrs Ghai sang Punjabi songs, Harsha and Sarvesh Achintu took away most of the applause. A Ms Deepta took care of photography and videographing, GZA VP Anil Bhattacharya more or less conducted the evening graciously with the evergreen gregarious Bimalendu Dey. There was a sporting spirit above all with substance and style and well, it was contagious. Everyone was posing for pictures with one another and exchanging phone numbers and I thought over and over again happiness is really to catch up with more and more community celebrations! The International Center Goa is really a most ideal venue for such informal celebrations and I love to go out there anyway to look at the lawns and trees. A weekend here is well spent in doing nothing but some serious rest and recreation.
ON that note here’s to wishing and promoting more community fraternity for the cause of seeking and finding happiness! It’s avjo, selamat datang, poiteveren, au revoir, arrivedecci, hasta la vista and vachun yeta for now.

—Mme Butterfly