In Bangladesh, the weather is generally warm throughout the year, which makes the winter season especially cherished. Winter arrives in November and lasts through January. This is a particularly significant time for farmers, as it marks the peak of the harvest season of the rice.
Winter is the best season for growing vegetables like cauliflower, cabbage, potatoes, eggplant, and radishes being cultivated and harvested.
Although Bangladesh does not experience snowfall, the winter months bring a unique charm.
The foggy mornings create an enchanting atmosphere, often inspiring poets to pen verses about the beauty of the season. People enjoy these foggy mornings in many different ways.
1. A Season for Picnics and Leisure
Winter in Bangladesh brings joy to students and teachers, as it’s the perfect time for outings. Every educational institution organizes trips to tourist destinations. Business organization’s also arrange picnics to keep employees happy.
To add to the fun, they arrange extracurricular activities such as badminton, football, 100-metre sprints, friendly cricket matches, and lottery games. Some even organize buffet lunches or dinners.
Key tourist destinations like Cox’s Bazar, the Sundarbans, Foys Lake, Fantasy Kingdom, Sajek Valley, and Sylhet Jaflong are all bustling with tourists.
At the end of the year, students feel a sense of joy because the yearly exams are over, and a long winter vacation is underway.
2. Season To Get Married
Winter makes Young people happy because of the large number of wedding events held during this time. This is due to the cool environment, festival-friendly weather, and the availability of family members.
In both cities and villages, event management companies become busy handling a heavy wedding schedule. Bangladesh has a very rich wedding culture, which we need to cover in a separate article.
3. Season of sports
We have 180 million people living in a small country. Due to the lack of playgrounds in both cities and villages, winter becomes the best time for playing and enjoying sports. This is because a large amount of agricultural land remains fallow, leaving open spaces available for various sports.
Many social and cultural organizations arrange cricket and football tournaments, which people enjoy. Young players are often rewarded for performing their best in these games. Kabaddi is the national sport of Bangladesh.
It’s somewhat similar to the Super Bowl in the USA, but in Kabaddi, there is no ball or goalpost. Instead, it is a game of physical strength and breath control.
4. Juice Of Date Tree
This special drink is only available in Bangladesh during the winter. Farmers collect it from tall date trees using clay pots.
In the evening, they cut the tree in a special way and hang the pots. By morning, the pots are filled with fresh juice, naturally sweet date juice. You can drink it fresh or use it to make delicious dishes.
Farmers start collecting this juice at the beginning of winter when the air becomes a little foggy.
5. Pitha festival
A special cuisine called *Pitha-Puli* is a traditional snack made using rice flour. There are hundreds of types of pitha, prepared with rice flour, sugar or date molasses, milk, egg and coconut.
Some families make pitha for breakfast every day.It’s a tradition for mothers, wives, or sisters to make pitha for family members or relatives on winter mornings or evenings.
Officially and socially, many people organize *Pitha Festivals* to celebrate the winter season. Pitha is the major part to celebrate marriage or birth day programs also.
Most are sweet to eat, but there are also salty-tasting pithas.
6. Guest Birds
Due to heavy snowfall in other parts of the world like Russia and Europe, a large number of migratory birds come to Bangladesh, flying around 2,000 to 3,000 kilometers.
This is a wonderful time for nature lovers, bird enthusiasts, and photographers to enjoy the sight of these birds. Lakes, ponds, rivers, and canals are filled with birds during this season. Eurasian Wigeon, Black-tailed Godwit, Ferruginous Pochard Ruddy Shelduck is the common guest bird in winters of Bangladesh.
January is the coldest month in Bangladesh. At the end of the February migrant birds go back to their home.
7. Spiritual attachment
For thousands of years, the people of Bangladesh have integrated religion into their daily lives, as practice stems from learning.
There is a tradition of organized knowledge sessions called *Mahfil* during the winter, where local communities arrange special open gatherings. They invite Islamic scholars to deliver lectures on various aspects of Islamic teachings and principles, focusing on their relevance to everyday life.
The committee of a local mosque, school, or social organization organizes this gathering during the winter season in a playground where a huge number of locals are present.
It’s a type of advertisement for various religious teachings and tools that the host uses to promote their name.
8. Winter Vegetables
Bangladesh has a unique variety of vegetables that are grown exclusively in winter. Throughout the year, farmers primarily focus on cultivating rice because it is the staple food here and requires a significant amount of water.
During winter, canals, rivers, and farmlands start to dry up, making it an ideal time to grow crops like lentils, tomatoes, pumpkins, leafy greens, radishes, beans, and carrots. Compared to other times of the year, vegetables are much more affordable during winter.
Conclusion
Though we are warm-weather people, we have fun when winter comes.
- People fear taking baths in ponds during winter because of cold water.
- They play with the smoke from their mouths as they breathe.
- They feel too lazy to wake up in the morning.
- On foggy mornings, we can’t see the path beyond a meter.
- The fog gets into our noses, and the nose turns it into water !
