The traditional Polo-Bawa festival of rural Bengal has been celebrated in Bishwanath, Sylhet, which is inhabited by expatriates. This festival is more than 250 years old and is celebrated at Goahari Beel in Daulatpur Union.

This festival, which is held every year on the first day of Magh month, has attracted more than a hundred amateur fishermen from home and abroad. The festival began on Wednesday morning at the Goahari Dakshin Beel premises and continued till noon.

Among the amateur fishermen who came from London, Europe and the United Arab Emirates, senior elders Abdul Rafiq, Manohar Ali, Faizul Haque and Alam Khan, all over sixty, participated in the festival. Faizul Haque said, “We join this festival every year to maintain the traditions of our ancestors and enjoy amateur fishing.”

People eager to join the festival were seen carrying fishing equipment like polo, chitchat net and feline net. The entire area came alive with the chanting of fish in the beel and the enthusiastic atmosphere of the hunters.

Locals said that no one catches fish in advance in Goyahari Beel on the day of the festival. Although the big bowal fish are not seen in the water of the beel like before, various species of small and large fish are found. After the hunt, the lucky hunters returned home with a smile.

However, due to encroachment, pollution and the crisis of canals and beels, the locals no longer see the abundance of fish like in the old days. Nevertheless, in an effort to maintain this tradition of the polo-bawa festival, the locals and expatriates participate in this joyful event.