Hello guys hope all of you are doing good.
Today a sudden plan made by my friend lead me to the anticipated annual festival called বানিজ্য মেলা. Her mom decided it. As a kid I would visit the place with my mother each year. This was the first time I went without her.
I really thought that there wouldn’t be much people as it was located in Purbachal, an area that is far away from Bashundhara itself. People without cars would struggle to even get here as it is distant from the usual place and because of the corona. But people swooped right in, before we even arrived the place was filled with people. Regardless, this international trade fair didn’t attract the usual amount of people like the years before COVID. It wasn’t surprising to see a plethora of CNG and auto drivers outside the place. Additionally, rides such as the swaying ship and নাগোর দোলা was situated outside the mela.
There was an offer on the ticket. It said that we would receive a 50% cash back if we pay through bkash, the ticket only costed TK40. Her mom didn’t know of this and bought us tickets the normal way. We headed in and started to venture inside the stall filled areas. As you can see in the corner areas, the place was littered!
I clicked all the photos here and thankfully my phone was fully charged this time😊. I caught this pic as it reminded me of the secret organisation in the Hitman universe. It sold denim wares as can be seen from the pic. A branch of this store is close to my home.
My friend and I zoomed past the stores, nothing was out of the ordinary. I saw the stall of Dehli Aluminium and was instantly hit with nostalgia, how I used to hold hands with my mom and roam that specific stall when it was located to the other approachable place. I wanted to try something from the place. We agreed on ice-cream. I took hazelnut and she took Belgian chocolate. I am slowly drifting towards coffee flavoured stuff, I just noticed😅.
The outer part of the stalls were observed, the stalls were jam packed! People were negotiating the prices, making tiktok videos, and taking funny pictures with the advertisement boards. I heard a kid saying to her mom and aunt,”এই old fashioned people এই দিক আসো, he was smacked then and there. A poor soul. My friend and I laughed hard on this. I was displeased with the balloon though, it used to fly 5x more than this height if I remember correctly. The children rides were also erected here.
The place was beautifully decorated but alas the pool also held garbage. Ruined the whole stature of the place.
Snapped a pic with the flower tops. There were a bunch of them, each one a different flower. I don’t quite know their names😅.
We entered the inside and was hit with more people.
This section contained the traditional Bengali clothes and clothes fit for home, household utensils such as big buckets and jugs, bags etcetera. I didn’t really find any western stuff. Only a Turkish carpet shop and that was actually marvellous. The design and art work was splendid.
There were more stalls with snacks! I personally feel that snacks are better food than actual meals. If only it didn’t affect my health🤪. I took a potato chips packet for TK10 but this was not the usual potato crackers, in fact, I scanned the stall’s wares for the local branded chips but couldn’t find any. The chips they had looked like a substitute for each commonly found chips. I will say that this chips was better than the normal potato crackers I had even though both might be same.
This was a museum of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s life. His works and contributions. We entered the place and went straight out as it hosted high number of people. The whole place was heated up due to the body temperature of the people.
Every teens favourite stuff was found in this booth, cars and noodles. Ramen actually. Didn’t browse the cars as it was more than I had with me so didn’t even bother. I am a sucker for cars and I know I would become a child if I looked at them.
I did take a picture though. Now I want the green Aventador that was going for 25% off😭.
I did get a cup noodles, my favourite food. It costed TK109 and an offer of buy 2 get 1 free. We took the offer and I will enjoy it tomorrow😁.
We moved to the next section, it contained electronics and furnitures. Didn’t bother with the price as I know that I didn’t need any. There was a Samsung stall and a few others all huddled together, not a bad thing as it created space for the people to move in.
Smartly decorated stall. It was selling household electronics.
I was moving though the place when suddenly a salesman started a conversation with me. I was merely looking at this project of theirs as the structure intrigued me and the with a sharp turn faced my way and started to explain the company’s scheme. How buying their place that was located in Cox’s Bazar with 8.5 lakhs(TK 850,000) would get me a small portion of land and a 30 square feet place in the building. After hearing the 30 sq ft thing I lost my interest, they held a lottery where they would choose a lucky winner to stay in that apartment for a week. I gave a fake number and got away.
This was another thing that I absolutely adored in the place. The Turkish lanterns, it really pleasures the eyes of one. The fine art and technique of the craft and their placement gives a upper class sort of vibe. And there I was with barely TK200 with me🙂.
It was well past lunch hours and my friend and I were getting hungry. I had lunch at 1:40 pm and then it was 5:20 pm. We moved to the food section of the fair. There, we shuffled from one stall to the other looking for cuisine that we didn’t try yet. Sadly, all of them were traditional Bangladeshi food consisting of biriyani, tehari, roast chicken, kebab, and chaap. We then came across this. We didn’t know this sort of chicken fry selling chain and decided to try it. We took 2 chicken fry, costed TK200 total. I would say this was a ripoff as later we found that they gave us a drum stick which they were selling for TK85. No wonder it was a money laundering stall! I also took a juice called Drinko, thankfully that was a hit.
My friend’s mom and aunt were roaming in another section of the place. The time to leave dawned on us as the day was nearing it’s edge.
Not much people were observed here.
As they were in the other side XD.
My friend and I had completed looking at every stall at the fair but her mom and aunt barely finished half.
On our way out, we saw a lot of interesting dudes with wares that the general populace were familiar with.
The famous plastic birds. But this one had spring that connected it’s wings with the body and another spring in the back. Pulling the one on the back made the bird perform a flying motion. Childish yet clever. Cost effective. My friend and her mom took 2, TK100 each.
The guy here was busy selling his stuff and couldn’t get a good picture of him. The usual lighted ball that glowed ever so brightly with high motion was in his hands along with more stuff.
Talk about beat one’s own trumpet! Here, however, it was a drum. A thing for children.
The popular, salted guava seller!
The trustworthy vendor selling chanachur mixed with lemon drips, green chilli, and onion.
The exploration ended during maghrib time. We were there for approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes. The car was parked outside the place, obviously, and came back to her place first before heading for mine.
This picture was taken by her. I asked her for it. Is was a great shot!
This was the end of the fair ride. Personally, my experience was not a good one. I wanted to see more variation in the goods section, more product from abroad and not the same ol’ stuff from ANY departmental store. It felt like a waste. The place of the fair is very good, this aspect was not present in the years of my visit with my mom but the lack of creativity was like an elephant in the room. I saw wooden houses, paper made houses and planes, creative toys not the usual plastic things that we get from most stores.