ASANANG (Garo Hills): Attired in colourful Garo 'regalia' they made a brisk business selling traditional tribal hand-woven outfits. The Garo team, from Bangladesh, lent warmth to the Hundred Drums Wangala Festival here on Saturday.
There around 30,000 Garos living in Dhaka alone, said Jonson Emre, leader of a team of 28 Garo artists, craftsmen and women, which makes it a point to attend the Wangala festival every year.
In fact, Wangla is celebrated thrice in Bangladesh,the biggest one being at Bonani Vidya Niketan inDhaka, where, this year the chief guest was the agriculture minister of Bangladesh, Motiur Choudhury, said Emre with a tinge of pride in his voice. Former Bangladesh president Hussein Mohammed Ershad too attended our Wanglala festival in Dhaka, added Emre between selling typically designed Garo handloom from the neighbouring country.
Shantana Rangsa, who teaches tribal music at the Birisiri Cultural Academy, run by the Bangladesh ministry of culture in Dhaka was all demure draped in colourful Garo attire. "I also teach Nazrul Geeti and Rabindra Sangeet," she said, as her eager group of Wangala dancers waited for their turn to dance on the field. tnn
Meanwhile, despite a chilly weather with clouds overhead, thousands of people thronged the Asanang field to regale in the Wangala festivities.
Women from rural Garo villages literally had a field day with infants as babies as young as two months were seen firmly tied with traditional shawls on their backs.
Earlier, it was never like this. It's good that Wangala is now being celebrated with such fanfare. In fact, it is an ancient dance performed in almost every village of the Garo Hills, said an octogenarian Bhola Sangma, holding the hand of his septuagenarian wife Urvashi at the Wangala fair.
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