Tajiks Celebrate Nowruz With Sumptuous Food, Songs And Dance

By Nur Ashikin Abdul Aziz PETALING JAYA (Selangor, Malaysia), April 5 (Bernama) -- The small Tajikistan community in Malaysia gathered here over the weekend in a festive mood to welcome the start of the spring season or the Nowruz celebration, with traditional food, songs and dance. Female guests came in colourful traditional Tajik handmade dress or chakan, while the men wore Joma, a robe-like men traditional attire complete with the toki (cap) on their head to the reception, hosted by the Tajikistan Embassy in collaboration with City University. Tajikistan Ambassador to Malaysia, Dr Muhammadi Muzaffar Munavvarzod, in his speech, expressed his joy that the some 200 Tajik community here were able to share the festive mood of the Nowruz day together with the locals and other community from countries celebrating the festival. "Nowruz is an event with deep historical roots, triumph of reason and a call to unity, friendship among people and nations, good neighbourly relations and cooperation in the name of peace and prosperity," he said. Local guests, who included Malaysia's Foreign Ministry Undersecretary for Africa, Department of Bilateral Affairs, Abdul Aziz Harun and City University Deputy Vice Chancellor, Research & Partnership, Associate Professor Dr Alfred Chee, were not only entertained with soothing traditional Tajik songs but also served with sumptuous Tajik food. These include the Plov, a staple food of the central Asian population made of rice, mutton and carrot, Sambusa (similar to Samosa); kulcha (Tajik national bread), as well as chakchak, a deep-fried dough drenched with honey and nuts. As the festivity reached its climax, guest, including children, gathered for the Tajik national dance, where the dancers took turn to dance in the middle of the dance floor in some sort of a playful dance-off. The International Day of Nowruz, inscribed in 2009 on the United Nation's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity as a cultural tradition observed by numerous peoples, is an ancestral festivity marking the first day of spring and the renewal of nature. Nowruz is celebrated as the beginning of the new year by more than 300 million people around the world for over 3,000 years. Besides Tajikistan, which has a population of over eight million, other countries which celebrate the festival are Afghanistan, Albania, Azerbaijan, Macedonia, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. -- BERNAMA