Assam gears up to celebrate Rongali Bihu

Guwahati: Amidst Lok Sabha elections, Assam is all geared up to celebrate Rongali or Bohag Bihu. The Bohag Bihu is a harvest or sowing festival and the Assamese New Year started from April 15. People celebrate the Rongali Bihu by arranging feast (ja-jalpan) with pitha (rice cake), laru (traditional food made of coconut).

Beautiful agricultural state of Assam celebrates major agricultural events as the festival of Bihu. Notably, there are three Bihu festivals in year namely - Rongali Bihu or Bohag Bihu, Bhugali (Magh Bihu) and Kangali (Kati Bihu) marking the distinctive phase in the farming calendar.

The Rongali Bihu marks the agricultural New Year at the advent of seeding time and is celebrated as the Festival of Merriment.

Colourful rituals mark the first day of Rongali Bihu celebrated as Garu Bihu. This day is dedicated to cattle and livestock. The rest of the weeklong celebrations of Bohag Bihu are known as Manuh Bihu. A mood of festivity and gaiety is seen throughout Assam during the seven days of Rongali Bihu.

During these days of Bihu, the Assamese kitchen are filled with many traditional items and also people celebrate this Bihu by performing traditional Bihu dance in the form of husori. Husori is one of the kind of Bihu dance in which a group of Bihu dancers visited households to perform the dance to seek blessings from the elder. People also exchanged Bihuwan to the dear and near ones in this festival as a mark of respect to the elders and love to the young ones.

The music of Dhol, Pepa, Gagana are mesmerizing the environment.

When it comes to Bihu, Tengakhat in Dibrugarh district cannot be forgotten as this place has make a stronghold in commercial production of ja-jalpan (feast) through which the rural economy has been grown up. Tengakhat is an ancient historic block development and the people of Tengakhat seems to have a much busy life during the time of Rongali Bihu. More than six industries of Jalpan have been established in Tengakhat.

Industrialist Nayan Saikia said that it is only in his industry that more than 4000 kilograms of Sira (Flattened rice), Komal Saul (traditional rice), Sandoh (made of rice) etc are produced every year during Rongali Bihu.

Also Read: ASSAM NEWS