Dhaka · মঙ্গলবার, ৯ জুন ২০২৬ · Issue No. 112Spring Arts Issue · Subscribe ৳120/mo

A Magazine of Music, Film, Letters & Ideas

Bengal, listening to itself

Photo Essay

মেলার মুখ / Faces of the Mela

Photography by Tahmina Karim · Words by Mehjabin Chowdhury · April 14, 2026

Photographer Tahmina Karim spent the first light of the Bengali New Year among the potters, mask-makers and singers of the Ramna fairground — thirty-one Boishakhs, one frame at a time.

A potter at the Pohela Boishakh fair — By seven in the morning the potter Habibur Rahman has already turned a hundred pots. He has come to the Ramna mela every Boishakh for thirty-one years.

Hand-painted masks for sale — Mask-maker Shilpi Das paints the owl and the tiger by hand. "The children always want the tiger," she says.

A folk singer mid-performance — The baul Anwar Fakir sings beneath a banyan, gathering a circle that grows through the morning.

Garlands of marigold — Marigold strings, threaded since before dawn, scent the whole eastern end of the fairground.

Children watching a performance at the fair — A row of children waits for the puppet stall to open. The puppeteer, Jamal, has performed the same Behula story since he was their age.

A crowd in colourful dress at the festival — By mid-morning the crowd is a river of red and white. A grandmother tells me she has not missed a Boishakh since 1971.

A musician's instrument resting at the close of day — By noon the heat empties the fairground. An ektara is left propped against a stall, its single string still warm from the morning's playing.

"A mela is not a place. It is a morning — and it ends the moment the light goes hard."

Photographs by Tahmina Karim · Words by Mehjabin Chowdhury