DHAKA, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- The smell of festivities filled the air with tens of thousands of people thronging parks and green spaces in Bangladeshi capital Dhaka Wednesday to welcome the Pohela Falgun, the first day of spring, which coincided with Valentine's Day.
Amid vibrant bursts of color, a troupe of artists danced and splashed each other with red and yellow colored powder at one of the major celebration venues, the University of Dhaka campus, in the morning.
The day-long event organized by the Jatiya Bosonto Utsab Udjapon Parishad (National Spring Festival Celebration Council) at Dhaka University was packed with music, dance, recitation and elocution performances.
With poetry, music, dance and colors, capital residents adorned in bright outfits also flocked to other venues for celebrations that also wave goodbye to the shivery chill of winter in the country.
Elsewhere in Bangladesh, people also performed chorus, folk dance and music and recited poems in the open air to celebrate the festivals.
As always, women and girls in Dhaka were seen in "bashonti" (yellow or orange) colored sarees and wearing floral ornaments, while boys wore colorful panjabis.
Young couples were seen celebrating their relationship and marking their togetherness with the blazing red and yellow colors, the representative colors of the festivals.
They gave their beloved ones candy, flowers and chocolates, among others, as gifts.
The celebrations of the two special occasions made business brisk for florists, and hawkers set up their mobile stalls in many places in the national capital to sell flowers at skyrocketing prices.
Sweet aroma hung in the air in parts of Dhaka as bunches of various types of roses were being sorted by florists, who are also busy with the trade of other most sought-after flowers like tuberose gladiolus, marigold, gerbera and daisy. ■
