Welcoming fraternity

By Uma Purkayastha

Bengali ‘Nobo Borsho’ and Rongali Bihu festival of the Assamese are almost of the same essence and practice. Both the festivals are celebrated on the same date of the same month, that of April.
In Bengali culture, ‘Nobo Borsho’ has always been celebrated as a religious ritual. Prayers and nagar kirton (mass prayer) would be performed for all-round welfare of the people and the universe. ‘Nobo Borsho’ being the first day of the Bengali New Year, it is the tradition to have a mass prayer for peace and prosperity. New clothes and traditional delicacies are also an intrinsic part of the celebrations.
Though the rituals are being followed since time immemorial, it was poet laureate Rabindranath Tagore who instilled a new vigour and essence into the ‘Nobo Borsho Utsav’.
Tagore, a great lover of nature, used to greet the new year through cultural programme in Shantiniketan. He would compose new songs and poems to bid farewell to the old and usher in the new. It was a colourful annual festival. The people of Bengal followed Tagore and added cultural activities to religious rituals while celebrating Nobo Borsho. The practice spread all over Bengal and reached the Bengali community in Assam.
During the last two decades of the 19th century, the Bengalee Brahmo Society (non-believer of idols) in Shillong took the leading part in all social and cultural activities here. Though Shillong was the capital of Assam, Assamese people were rare here.
Most of the Brahmo members were government officials and other workers from Sylhet and erstwhile Calcutta. With them came the celebrations of ‘Nobo Borsho’, which was started in Shillong in 1888 (‘Maha Jeevoner Pothe’ by Saradamanjari Dutta). It is the starting of socio-religious-cultural activities in Shillong. Prior to that, there was no particular society or social life in the untrodden hilly place.
During that initial period, members of the Brahmo Society, both female and male, would gather in a place of Laban area (present Upper Laban) early in the morning and start a procession on foot, chanting prayers for the welfare of the whole universe. It was called ‘nagar kirton’. The main object of the celebration was mass prayer through devotional songs and discussions. There was also the custom of light refreshment after the gathering. The Bengalis, other than the Brahmos in Shillong, used to observe the day with puja and prayer to greet the new year with full sanctity and entertaining people with home-made sweets.
During 1935, the first Community ‘Rongali Bihu’ in Shillong was held in the field of Laban Assamese Boys’ School with traditional Bihu dance and Bihu geet. Sports were also part of the special events (‘Ajo Nityah’ by Kaverri).
The Bihu Celebration Committee was named as ‘The Shillong Central Rongali Bihu Celebration Committee’ Bishnupur; and a few years later, ‘The Meghalaya Rongali Bihu Celebration Committee’, was formed with the people of Laitumkhrah, Dhanketi, Malki and Nongthymmai.
It is worth mentioning that the Rongali Bihu festival, though arranged by the Assamese community, was a secular festival, open to all communities, welcoming universal integrity and fraternity, similar to that of Nobo Borsho.

(The author is former
principal of Government Girls’ Higher Secondary School)