Biswanath is celebrating the 113th Raas festival

The celebration of 113th Raas Utsav has already begun in the Garehagi village in Biswanath on Monday (November 30) and it will continue till Tuesday.

The two-day festival has been organized by Adarsh Garehagi Gaon Samiti of Biswanath Chariali at Garehagi Namghar abiding by maintaining social distancing and other COVID-19 protocol.

They have urged people to enjoy the occasion wearing masks. Sanitizers have been placed at the main entrance for all the visitors. The seating arrangement has been done in keeping with the social distance norms.

However, this year the organizing committee kept it simple and short and keeping the ongoing pandemic in mind cancelled bhaona (Drama) that features child artists below 10 years and senior actors above 65 years. Hence only dance dramas based on Lord Krishna's childhood are being performed and apart from that, Keligopal natbhag (Drama) will be staged in an open field.

Earlier in a press conference, the secretary of the Raas celebration committee, Tapan Saikia said," We have been organizing this festival for the last 113 years. Even though this year the situation is not comfortable enough, we will organize the festival abiding by the COVID-19 protocol."

Raas Utsav (Festival) is an annual festival also called Sri Krishna's Raas Lila is celebrated on "Raas Purnima" ( full moon) day in the Autumn season where the life of Sri Krishna and his many wonders are performed on stage in various forms of play and acts during the festival.

Mahapurush Srimanta Sankardeva named this 'Raas Lila' of Lord Sri Krishana as 'Keli Gopal'.

First Raas Lila was performed at Dakhinpat Sattra in 1840 A.D. and it is continued since then with full ritual ways.

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