Bizu

Unbelievably, or so it feels, I have just passed my second Bizu in Bangladesh. Last year, I spent it in Khagrachari, enjoying lots. This year, I went to Rangamati because the security situation in Khagrachari is still not great, and – if it’s possible – I enjoyed even more there!

Bizu is the Chakma name for new year celebrations, which are observed across much of South and Southeast Asia according to the movement of the sun (usually on or around 14th April). In the hills, the Tripura, Marma and Chakma groups have given it their own name: Boisabi, an amalgamation of the different names given to this festival by each group: for the Tripura, it’s Boisuk, for the Marma it’s Sangrai, and for the Chakma it’s Bizu.

Although Bizu or Boisabi is observed differently in different areas, in the hills it generally involves three days of festivities. The first day, Phul Bizu, is a flower festival, where people exchange flowers and hang them in their doorways. Bitter neem leaves are also hung up, apparently to freshen the hew year. Unfortunately, owing to bad timing on my part, I have spent Phul Bizu both years sitting on buses, on my way to the hills.

Not to worry, however, because it is the next day, Mul Bizu, that’s the big daddy of Bizu. On Mul Bizu, it is the tradition to ‘go visiting’. Well, that’s what you do if you’re a bideshi and therefore not expected to receive visitors yourself. If you’re not, you probably spend a lot of time cooking for and serving the steady stream of visitors who will no doubt pass by. Going visiting may sound like the jolly past time of nineteenth gentlewomen, prone to attacks of the vapours, but in the hills, it’s a marathon of eating and drinking that pushes your stamina – and your stomach capacity – to the limits. In order to bring good luck to the new year, we were repeatedly told, you should aim to visit at least seven houses. Last year, we made it to thirteen houses. This year, I made it to fourteen before conceding defeat.

What makes going visiting so difficult is the pace of the schedule and the sheer quantity of food you’re expected to consume at each and every house you visit. I’m sure we were supposed to visit at least twenty houses, and doubtless caused great offense in our failure to do so. Estelle and Tony, who both live in Rangamati, made it to seventeen and eighteen houses respectively, even though they began at 9am, three hours before my friend Amy and I arrived, and didn’t stop until almost midnight.

In every house you go to, you’re usually offered the same dishes and drinks. Depending on how you feel about the food, this can be a good or a bad thing, but I don’t think I’ll be eating brown mishti or watermelon again for quite some time.

The classic Bizu dish is a vegetable dish called pachon, supposed to contain at least twenty different types of vegetables – the majority if which I was unable to identify. As it is cooked with the dried rotten fish paste that is so common in cooking here, I can’t say that I’m a big pachon-fan. Birani, however, is a different matter. This is boot dal (big round lentils, a bit like chickpeas), and usually has egg or meat bones in it as well. Even at my fourteenth house I was still reaching for a second helping. Watermelon is also offered, Bizu coinciding with the peak of watermelon season in the hills. Other foods on offer included: delicious curried pork, different kinds of pitha (cake) made with rice, coconut and green bananas, noodles with egg, brown mishti, jalepis (just like skinny donuts, according to Amy), omlette, rice pudding, noodle pudding, papaya, orange, apple, banana, grapes, fruit custad, deep friend fish, chicken curry, beef curry, ruti, paratha, boiled rice… the list goes on.

Now, don’t get the idea that you can somewhoe have a little of one or two of these things and then just say you’re full. This simply doesn’t wash as a reason not to eat in the hills (or all of Bangladesh, for that matter). The key to survival is to make sure your plate is never empty. This means you can point to your single piece of watermelon and truthfully claim to still be eating. That way, your host is less likely to stick another fried fish on your plate, or a generous spoonful of pachon. Another trick is to avoid stodge, as there is absolutely no way you can eat rice pudding fourteen times, even if it’s really tasty.

But this is only the food. Drinking begins early on Mul Bizu, and as early at 10am people were pissed. I thought we did well to avoid alochol until 12.30pm. After that, the parade of rice wine, rice beer (good for ladies, apparently, because it’s ‘softer’), whiskey, rum etc etc blurred into one. With all that eating, I can’t say that I got drunk, but walking up and down all those hills, especially after dark, required rather more concentrationt than usual.

I think we finished our last visit at about midnight, at which point we all stumbled gratefully home and into bed.

Day Three
The third day of Bizu is known as sleeping Bizu, or rest Bizu – and after the delights of Mul Bizu, you can probably guess why. It’s also the New Year’s Water Festival for the Marma indigenous group, so for many people – us included – there’s not rest to be had.

The Water Festival is celebrated throughout South and Southeast Asia, in Burma, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, for example. The idea is that you sprinkle water on others, to cleanse them in preparation for the new year. Given that the festival falls in April, one of the hottest months in this region, it’s no surprise that there’s actually more splashing, squirting, dousing and dunking than ‘sprinkling’. If the splashing of water is supposed to cleanse you for the new year, I’d say we are all positively spotless by now.


We hired Moanaghar’s ambulance to take us to Chitmorong, a Marma Buddhist temple about an hour from where we were staying. Don’t ask why we hired an ambulance. It seemed like a really great idea, until we realised it lacked AC, windows and proper seats. At least it was easy to spot in a crowd – except when our two young drivers were off joy riding. Anyway, it was a lovely scenic drive around the Kaptai reservoir and along the banks of the Karnaphuli river. Tony said Chitmorong, a short boat ride across the river, was a lovely peaceful place, so I was imagining a day of lazing around, with maybe a dip in the river if there weren’t too many people about.

Unfortunately, on this day, Chitmorong resembled a zoo. It was heaving with visitors, monks, beggars and hawkers, and the sight of four bideshis was obviously too much to handle. Because we were all really hot after our ride in the ambulance, we foolishly decided to have a quick cooling swim, even though the river smelled suspiciously like sewage. It nearly caused a riot. Crowds thronged the banks of the Karnaphuli, everyone trying to catch a glimpse of the crazy foreigners. Well, kind of. That’s what it felt like as we climbed back up the banks in our wet clothes.

As we wandered over to the temple, the double takes and the ‘wows’ were flattering at first. Then, the sensation that I would never like to be a famous person quickly took over. At one point, we must have had a crowd of at least fifty young men trailing us, camera phones extended. As someone said, it was a bit like being pursued by a troop of zombies.

The real fun began when we went to watch the water splashing. Again, I couldn’t’ get a straight answer on the origins of this ritual, but it’s quite a spectacle to behold. Two boats are drawn up side by side, about six feet apart, and filled with water from the river. The contestants line up in front of each boat, girls in their beautiful Marma dresses on one side, boy on the other. Everyone is handed a little tin cup. Then someone blows a whistle and both sides have to fling as much water as they can at the other side, for what feels like an agonisingly long time. What the aim is, how a winner is decided, and whether this actually is a competition, I couldn’t say. But when they asked us if wanted to have a go, I didn’t hang around. By the end, you’re soaked, exhausted and filthy. Your eyes sting from the water, and your flinging arm is trembling. It was incredible!

After that, we spent the rest of the day eating and swimming on a quieter stretch of the river. That evening, we firmly refused all invitations to further programs, and organised our own program, involving rum and cokes, and honey roast potatoes. The perfect end to a perfect day.