31/03/2022
“Maach-ey bhaat-ey Bangali” – a significant proverb that every Bengali grows up hearing, representing our inborn love and need for fish as a complement to a staple of our meals. Be it khichuri and hilsa fry on a rainy afternoon or koi er jhol with steaming rice for dinner, our meal is simply incomplete without a fish dish!
Puran Thana Maach Bazar one of the biggest and most famous wholesale fish market, in Kishoreganj city. The varieties of fish, which is massive in number, will surely confuse anyone if they go there without any plan to get what they want to buy.
Fish markets are one of the most interesting places in Bangladesh. The fishermen catch fish and then bring them over to the fish markets. The marketplaces get crowded with people from the surrounding neighborhoods. During the early evening periods, the markets get so crowded that there are more people in the markets than fish. So, the shopkeepers start auctioning away the fish. In this audio, we can hear the shopkeeper first asking the people how much they are willing to pay for the fish per kilogram. Then, they take that price as the base price and start shouting the price. Whenever someone shouts a higher price, they start shouting out the next new highest price. This incrementation of the price goes on until no one else is willing to pay as much as the highest bidder. Fish markets get really crowded and people start pushing each other to try to get ahead in line amongst the crowd. These markets usually open at 6 am in morning.However, even at night, its no exception, there are many kinds of fish available in this market at night.
© Mehedi Hasan