Steemit Engagement Challenge |S17-W3|

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Hello to all steemians of this community

I am here again to participate in the Steemit engagement challenge season 17 week3 in #steem for Bangladesh Community. I am excited to publish my article on this week's engagement challenge with the title of - ** "National Festival ".** Let's start,

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What is the national festival of your country? How did it start

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I am a citizen of Bangladesh and the happiest identity is that I am a Bengali. One thing you will always hear about Bengalis is "বাঙালির বারো মাসে তেরো পার্বন". Which means Bengalis celebrate 13 festivals in 12 months. We can divide the festivals that are celebrated nationally in our country into few categories. Bangladesh celebrates a nationally religious festival. People of different religions live in Bangladesh and the festivals of each of their religions are celebrated. Among them are Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Azha of Muslims, various pujas of Hindus, Christmas of Christians and other religions celebrate their own religious festivals nationally. Also some of the nationally celebrated festivals that must be mentioned are the birthday of Bangladesh as an independent country, independence and victory. Every citizen of Bangladesh celebrates these three days nationally with great sincerity, joy and pride. I think this trend will continue forever.

There are some traditional festivals of Bangladesh which are celebrated with great joy by Bengalis. Bangladesh is a diverse country where people of different religions and castes live. These traditional festivals are celebrated by men and women regardless of caste, religion. Among these traditional festivals are Pahela Boishakh, Pahela Phalgun, Ekushe Book Mela, Navanna, Paush Sankranti and many other festivals. But in this contest I will write you about the festival celebrated in the last seven days which is celebrated nationally in our country.
This festival is to welcome the first day of the Bengali New Year in a traditional way. The Bengali year is made up of seasons and the first month of these six seasons is Baishakh, hence the name of the festival to welcome the month of Baishakh is Pahela Baishakh.

The celebration of this festival has been started since many ages. Pahela Baisakh was celebrated for the first time during the reign of Emperor Akbar. From that time this festival is called the festival of Bengali life. From 1989, some new measures were taken to celebrate this festival under the initiative of Fine Arts Department of Dhaka University which is still ongoing. I will write about this in my post as an answer to the question below.

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How is this festival celebrated? Are there any special rules for celebrating it?

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This festival is celebrated throughout the country throughout the day. There are several rules to celebrate this festival. But rather than calling them rules, I would say there are several enjoyable activities. To celebrate this festival we do a "Mangal Shobha Jatra" or a joy rally in the early hours of the day or early morning. Our day starts with this. All men, women and children participate in the Mangal procession and there is also a color game. People paint different things with their hands and cheeks in these places. In the "Mangal Sobhayatra" everyone holds a placard with masks of various animals.

There are no restrictions on celebrating this festival. Seeing that there are no rules in celebrating the festival, it is a Bengali's dearest festival. A special allowance is provided by the government to celebrate this festival.

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Are there any special outfits or foods for celebrating your national festival?

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One of the main ways to celebrate this day is to wear colorful new dresses. On this day women wear the traditional dress saree. A crown of fresh flowers is worn on the head. By cleaning the house and painting Alpana. Apply henna on hands.

It is a traditional Bengali festival so we follow everything from our ancestors on this day. We eat our traditional food, our national fish Hilsa, accompanied by rice and various types of bhartas, green chillies. These are traditional Bengali dishes. Our Pahela Boishakh festival is not complete without eating these dishes.

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Tell us about your favorite memory from celebrating your national festival

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Screenshot from my social media account

I have some fun memories while celebrating this festival which I will share with you now. The first memory I have is from my college life. At that time I went to the college campus to celebrate this festival with my friends and ate the traditional food of our country with many friends. After eating, everyone took a group photo. One of my favorite memories here is the day I met some of my new friends who donate blood. We all know blood donation is a noble cause, feel privileged to meet some noble people at such a festival. I have lost the photographs there, but I am presenting a picture to you with a screenshot from my social media account.

I have one more good memory of celebrating this festival which I want to share with you. Once I celebrated its festival with all the kids in my building. I loved it when the children came to visit me in new clothes and flower crowns. I went to the roof of the house and took many photographs with them. If you look at the pictures you will understand how much quality time I have spent with them.

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I would like to invite my friends @jasminemary @pathanapsana to participate in this SEC .

Thanks everyone for reading my post

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Best Regards,

@pea07