Assam: 12th Baokhungri Festival concludes with ethnic flavours in Kokrajhar

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOKRAJHAR: The 12th Baokhungri Festival, held from April 12 at Harinaguri near Baokhungri Hill in Kokrajhar, concluded with ethnic flavours on Monday with over 1.5 lakh visitors from various parts of the region and abroad in the traditional hill trekking atop Baokhungri on the last day of Chaitra, a day before Assamese New Year.

Organized by the Organizing Committee in association with the Department of Tourism, Culture and Sports and Youth Welfare, BTC, the mega calendar event was supported by the Government of BTR. As in previous years, there were ethnic food stalls of different tribes including from Bhutan, competitions of folk dances of ethnic communities, indigenous sports, cycling, hill trekking, and ethnic food cooking, etc. The delicacies of ethnic tribes, traditional sports, and paragliding were the other attractions of the festival. People thronged the stalls to taste the roasted and burnt pork, chicken, Endi larva/insect, local rice beer of various categories including sticky rice in the festival. The sticky rice beer was the most sought by visitors followed by roasted pork and Endi larva fry.

The main gate was opened by EM Dhananjay Basumatary on the 1st day morning followed by flag hoisting. The flag of the Organizing Committee was hoisted by the convenor Sanjay Basumatary while flags of Tourism and Indigenous Sports were simultaneously hoisted by the EM of Tourism Dharma Narayan Das and the President of the Bodoland Indigenous Games Association (BIGA) and MLA Lawrence Islary respectively. The arena of indigenous sport ‘Khomlainai’ was inaugurated by former deputy chief of BTC Kampa Borgoyari while Gila Court and Daobo Athing competitions were inaugurated by BTC EM Ranjit Basumatary and General Secretary of the UPPL Raju Kr Narzary respectively. The statue of ‘Princess Baokhungri’ was unveiled by ex-EM Reo Reoa Narzihary.

It may be mentioned that the 1st Baokhungri Festival was initiated by BTC in 2014 to provide a platform to the local populous to protect and preserve the significance of Baokhungri and to focus on the historical insights of Baokhungri and bio-diversity of Chakrasilla Wildlife Sanctuary, the home of the endangered golden langur species. Several hundreds of people from the locality climb the Baokhungri Hill peak once a year on the last day of Chaitra over the years to offer prayer to Princess Baokhungri, the daughter of Daokha Raja, who sacrificed her life atop Baokhungri Hill after receiving news of the martyrdom of her beloved in a war. There was only a huge ‘Sijou’ (cactus plant) in the Bathou atop Baokhungri Hill to offer prayers but nowadays various religious groups have started to open temporary prayer points on the occasion of Baokhungri Festival. Sijou is the soul of Bathou religion where people from all age groups climb the Baokhungri Hill with a belief that their wishes will be fulfilled, and to testify their physical strength and fitness for the next year.

Also Read: Sarania Kachari students to hold biennial conference from April 18 in Tamulpur district

Also Watch: