Harvest of Nostalgia (Magh Bihu)

Magh Bihu is all about celebrating the rich harvest and community feasting, like Lohri and Pongal, Makar Sankranti celebrated in other parts of India. The fervor of Magh Bihu though distant in time is still freshly etched in my memory. The Magh Bihu or Bhogali Bihu I remember and cherish the most was celebrated at the Post Office field in Dispur Capital Campus where boys generally played cricket. This field had a huge gomari tree in the north-west corner, a bogori tree to the north east corner and one to the south-east corner which flowered white fluffy cotton. I forgot what tree was there near the Post Office corner but this particular tree was entwined with Rabonor Nari- the yellow creeper. During Magh Bihu time, the entire field would sprout out over-night with either bhela ghars or tents pitched by different groups- families as well as group of young boys.

The campus we grew up was very cosmopolitan with UPites, Biharis, Madrasis (yeah! All south Indians were Madrasis to us then), Punjabis, Rajasthanis, Oriyas, Bengalis etc. The campus was a microcosm of India. Our geographical knowledge about the different states were associated with surnames like Khare (whom we called as Ravan uncle amongst us for his Ravan-like moustache), Jhingran, Mishra, Bhattacherjee, Banerjee, Mukhurjee, Chatterjee, Chakraborty , Kabilan, Kamilla, Pipersenia, Chawla, Yadav, Verma, Sengupta, Musahary, Deka, Ahmed, Sarma, Goswami, Pegu, Kutum, Maheshwari, Saikia, Hazarika, Bora, Patar, Barua, Pathak, Singha, Malakar, Dey,  Das, Gogoi, Gohain, Thakur, Borthakur, Duwarah, Choudhary, Neog, Singh, Majumdar, Thadani, Mondol, Kotoky, Kakoti, Khanikar . . . the list being endless (and if your surname is not here you can that too). It was good to see non-Assamese families participating with us in our festivities. It won’t be wrong to state that we lived like one big family within the cocoon of the campus.

The small yet cozy and homely Assam-type government quarters were well fenced with bahor bera (bamboo and cane wall/ fences), lattice and with a wooden gate leading to the verandah. There was never any dearth of these ubiquitous materials which came in real handy during Magh Bihu celebration. The entire campus was well guarded as it housed the CM, his platoon of ministers, bureaucrats, officials and staff of Dispur Secretariat and hence was considered very safe and secured except for young thieves like us. A month or so before Magh Bihu, we- a gang of 4-5 girls in our locality would survey the length and breadth of the campus every day during our evening walks to steal whatever could be burnt during Uruka- Magh Bihu eve. Two incidents stand out clear in my mind both related to stealing. Stealing of bamboo fences, wooden gates and plundering vegetables from neighbour’s kitchen garden was never a taboo during Magh Bihu and Uruka.

There was a children’s park in my lane which could also be accessed from the lane behind my house. Children staying within the campus but afar would also frequent it. The house adjacent to the park was lying vacant as the uncle who occupied it retired from service. It was not difficult to steal bera from such unoccupied houses as we faced no resistance at all. Another factor which immensely helped us in the collection was the presence of 2 uncles who drank like fish. They cared a hoot if their houses had bamboo fences or not. The climax of stealing came on the last few days of Uruka when families left for their native homes for Magh Bihu. Such houses were diamond mines and hence fell in easy prey for us. The friends from my circle- Kabita, her younger sister Tutumoni, Tikli, Bhanti and I were masters in stealing such objects while Juri, Tuski (a young Sardarni) and Dolla (a very quiet Bengali girl) whose stay in the campus were very brief never learnt the art quite well. In one such stealing expedition my Oriya friend Tikli’s helper Gajendra also accompanied us. Equipped with pliers and hammar in our hands we got busy with our work of cutting the wires from the beras. Tikli must have accidentally touched a caterpillar and her entire face swelled up in no time. Such an inflated face had a simple cure during those days. We, as kids would without fail dab our ears with a dash of lime.

Very soon Tikli joined us again once her tidal face receded back to normal. We had to concentrate hard on our work on tearing off the wires from each other so that each bera came apart. During such expeditions we also took brief breaks to tittle-tattle in hush-hush tones and also to guide each other on how best to extract the bera efficiently and quickly without being caught. In the same house, Tutumoni while working meticulously accidentally stamped onto something which later emitted an awful smell once ‘the cake was cut’. It was human excreta as we found out on close inspection, dried up from above but still fresh like ‘freshly baked cake from Ma’s oven’ from inside. On seeing this, Gajendra in his Bihari accent announced, “Kune eyat ‘pa-khena’ korise?” (Who did number 2 here?). We all burst into laughter on hearing him say so. Poor Tutumoni was literally on the verge of tears. Children who frequented the park to swing or slide must have either felt easy to attend to nature’s call in the backyard of this house or must have felt the urgency to relieve himself/ herself here instead of dashing back home. Luckily there was water available with which Tutumoni washed off her dirty and smelly feet. We had to drop the adventure for the time-being on that day and decided to continue the next day. But we gave Tutumoni all the moral support, which we did from a distance on our return back home, something she desperately needed at that hour.

The other incident also took place very near the Post Office ground which was also the common adda ground for some group of boys. Bhanti divulged the secret to us that her neighbor from the same lane- a Bengali family, were out for the day to the State Zoo on a picnic. The girls swung into action at once with all tools handy for operation ‘bera-chur’. It was broad day light, must be around 3/ 3-30 pm when we stormed in. We were all positioned in front of the house busy piercing the wires from the bamboo fences when suddenly a white ambassador car halted right in front of us and an old uncle- the house-owner, emerged shouting “Hey, hey, hey! Ki korisa tumaluke?” (What are you all doing?). I must state here that the same gang of girls was great sprinters too. During Rongali Bihu when athletic competitions were held (100 m, 200 m, relay race, 3-legged race etc.) in the Tank field we always won prizes. The Tank field, a little away from our house was the venue of Durga Puja, Kali Puja and Rongali Bihu. It had a huge stage with a World War tank on display behind the stage and hence the name. It was no competition when we were all caught stealing red-handed but we all ran like fugitives from the spot barring Bhanti, the girl who provided us with the valuable information (albeit a bit late), had the sure footedness of a mountain goat as she remained rooted to the ground petrified by the sudden entry of the occupants of this house-hold. When I fled from the spot I remember hearing her utter “Nai, mane Uncle.” I don’t know what she explained to Uncle later.

Once the beras came apart, we carried it two-by-two since it was light weight and stored it safely in either of our homes. Carrying the beras to our house was a ritual on its own. We felt like a tigress on a night prowl having pounced upon its kill and returning to its den after the catch.

Like fishing eagles, we also vied for wooden gates because this burnt longer and lit really well in the bonfire. We had to use ‘siprang’ (a solid heavy iron tool used for digging) to uproot the strong foundation of the wooden gate, more so because its base was cemented. Gates in Dispur Capital Campus always came in pairs, medium height generally painted blue and with an iron bar to close it. Since extracting gates was no easy game, the neighbourhood aunts- namely Phukan aunty and Deka aunty et. al. also helped us at times. However, this was done under the cover of darkness and never in broad daylight.

The venue of uruka where all the neighbourhood families got together and feasted was always the south-east corner of the field i.e. the corner nearest to my house. We collected money from those who participated and followed the ‘per person system’ while collecting it. Our only cause of concern was for a particular boy, much younger than us but who ate more than double of what a child could eat. We were in a dilemma as he wasn’t an adult that we could charge more for him from his parents. Nevertheless, we included him in the children’s category. For participating uncles and aunties the amount was more while for participating children it was half of their parents. The logic was we ate lesser than our parents. Now those who didn’t participate with us, we ensured that we swept their front yards clean or left our signatures by stealing vegetables from their kitchen gardens. In those days every house-hold, sowed veggies- fresh and organic. While non-participant families, mostly two such families from our immediate locality, always raised their fingers at us when they woke up the next day, irrespective of the fact whether we plundered their assets or not. Silence was the best mantra so we always remained mute spectators. Since stealing on such a festival was not considered a taboo we enjoyed every minute of our loot.

To erect the bhela ghar, we needed 4 beras, one on each side and another one or two for the thatched roof. On the day of Uruka, right from the morning the girls would get busy as a bee burrowing holes like rats on the ground with tools like siprang and khonti (garden spade) to plant the 4 bamboo poles which stood as posts at each corner, followed by the bera walls. This time we had to tie the beras with wires to each other. The wires which we preserved in our bera burglary always served this purpose. Spreading the roof which was done at the last was the most challenging task. Just flooring the roof on the top was not sufficient. We had to fix half slit bamboo poles diagonally and like a lat. and long. network to hold the roof firm over our heads. After the makeshift bhela ghar was ready we also dug a chowka (a fireplace) on the ground inside the bhela ghar with 3 bricks neatly laid out on each side. Winter in those days- 30-35 years back were very cold and not like today’s winter which is comparatively warmer. It was great fun for us to sit around the fireplace, to play games and prattle. Even though the girls were able to build the bhela ghar absolutely on their own we were always entirely dependent on the boys- Hitesh (Kabita and Tutumoni’s brother), Tarun da et. al. for electricity. Without electricity there would be no music, music to dance and sing and play games. Of course, the music which blasted the whole night was the latest Bollywood numbers. One song which floods my memory with Magh Bihu nostalgia whenever I heard it even now is “Range bhare baadal mein” from the Hindi movie Chandani starring Rishi Kapoor and Sri Devi.

Magh Bihu in Assam is a time when prices of meat and fish shoot up overnight. One need not study Economics for this short-duration price rise. That’s what I heard Deota often telling me jokingly when I opened my Economics textbooks. Near the Panir Tanky (Water Tank) field there were two shops- one which sold vegetables and the other which sold fish. Adjacent to my friend Bhanti’s house (who was also known as Hitler) lived an uncle who was commonly known in the campus as ‘Rou Mach’. While out in the fish shop to buy fresh fish, Rou Mach uncle went on poking his fingers on the fish to check if it was fresh or stale. The brusque fish-seller commented, “Baperor gharor harmonium paisili neki?” (Is that a harmonium at your father’s house?)

We got chairs, morhas and pirhas from home which was used outside the bhela ghar for the aunties and uncles to sit while the mats and dharis would be neatly spread out on the ground inside the bhela ghar around the fireplace for us. We also got kotaris to peel, chop, slice vegetables; colander (khorahi), griddle, ladles, plates, sauce-pans and whatever kitchen utensils were required. The two huge dekchis and kerahis at home were used for cooking in the community feast during uruka. A music system with a few cassettes from the latest in B-wood would enliven the atmosphere immediately. A few aunties would also gyrate to the music once the evening music flowed in.  Cha, namkeen and sweets were served after dusk. Potatoes were also roasted in the chouka (fire-place) inside the bhela ghar. We greatly relished the alu pura (roasted potato) with a sprinkle of salt.

The aunties took charge in the evening as they got ready to cook for the feast. Chicken, mutton, fish, labra, dal-bhat and salad was the usual items for the community feast. The marketing of meat was usually done by the uncles. In a way each and every one of us, from the children to the aunties and uncles played different roles in the Uruka celebration.

Once during uruka it rained in the afternoon while we were busy building the bhela ghar. Someone from the gang suggested that if we draw the Sun on the road or footpath with chalk or bricks, the rains would disappear. So, all of us took broken pieces of red brick and started to draw the sun so that the rains would go away. Lo and behold! The weather God did listen to our prayers.

After feasting at night we would be cooped inside the bhela ghar till late night, as jokes, stories of ghosts and fairy tales and folk tales, games like passing the parcel did its round around the warmth of the smoldering embers. However, by 2-3 am we esp. the younger ones would head home to sleep. Once my elder sister Pahari and her friend Pratibha ba (Kabita, Tutumoni and Hitesh’s elder sister) and a couple of other boys and girls slept inside the bhela ghar when Hitesh all of a sudden lit the bhela ghar. God only knows what made him do so but we were all very angry with him when we discovered to our utter horror that our bhela ghar was reduced to ashes at night while we slept at home.

At night, police personnel from Dispur Police Station would also patrol the area for any untoward incident. When we were very young, perhaps I was in class V or VI, an older boy from the same campus murdered his friend in an inebriated state on Uruka night. We got very scared on hearing the news but since we were with our parents we saw no harm from the policemen on duty.

On the day of Magh Bihu we went on rounds from door-to-door feasting on larus (ladoos), pithas (rice-cake) and other savories made of narikol (coconut) and til (sesame). This ritual of feasting went on for a week or so after Uruka.

Nowadays there’s hardly any park or open ground where a group of adults and kids can celebrate Magh Bihu. I feel sad when I see the present generation kids confined to pigeon-holed buildings. Ours was a different time altogether. I feel sorry for my nephews and nieces and kids of their age who would never know the excitement of stealing during and before Magh Bihu, the fun of raising a bhela ghar, the bond woven by the finer threads of feasting and celebration on Uruka, the time when young boys and girls got to know each other well ‘in-quite-their-own-special-ways while stealing secret glances’, when love and festivity reigned supreme. This was also the time when young boys learnt about the art of smoking and took their first sip from the ‘bottle’.

We worked as a team with shared responsibility and acquired some degrees of organizational skills when still young. We were small architects in our own ways even though the bhela ghars we built stood on the ground for just a single day.

The next day after Uruka we woke up early in the morning when the veil of mist still hung in the air and lit the bhela ghar, our one-day ‘home’. We prayed and chanted hymns as our bhela ghar was reduced to ashes. But we never felt disheartened on seeing the bamboo structure going up in flames because we knew, come next year; we will start the whole process of stealing and merry-making once again with renewed vigor and fervor and with yet another years of experience added to our hats.