From Our Correspondent
TURA: It is festival time once again at Asanang village as the air reverberates with the sound of traditional drum beats on Thursday evening following the arrival of the first Wangala troupe to take part in the most gala post harvest festival of the Garos well known as the hundred drums Wangala festival.
The Wangala cultural village at Asanang, 18 kms from Tura, is expected to be swamped by close to a lakh-and-a-half people during the three-day festival with tourists, local and foreign, expected in large numbers.
The Wangala is the post-harvest festival of the Garos holding great significance. The festival is annually held between the months of October to November as a ‘Thanksgiving’ ceremony to Misi Saljong, also known as Pattigipa Ra’rongipa and Minima Rokkime (The Great Giver) for blessing the farmers with an abundant harvest.
The Wangala is still practiced in some non-Christian villages. With the advance of modern civilization, Wangala or the cultural identity of the Garos was seen to be slowly disappearing. In order to preserve, protect and promote the cultural identity of the Garos, a group of intellectual leaders got together to form the Hundred Drums Wangala Fesival Committee and decided to organize the harvest festival on modern lines.
A dancing troupe of 30 persons with ten drums forms a contingent and ten such contingents with 300 dancers make up the hundred drums Wangala festival.
The three-day festival which began on Thursday will have Chief Minister Dr Mukul Sangma as the chief guest on Saturday, the concluding day of the celebrations.
As in the previous year, the festival will also see a 30-member dance troupe from neighbouring Bangladesh.
While the main attraction of the festival will be the traditional 100 drums presentation other events that will also be eye catchers are the indigenous games/sports, oral traditions, ajia doroa grika competition concluding with Rugala and Sasat so’a ceremony at 3 pm on November 11.
A three-day industrial exhibition is also taking place at the Wangala festival site venue with as many as 40 stalls put up by different departments and industrial units from Garo Hills including two national awardees for outstanding efforts in entrepreneurship.
For the first time an industrial unit from Bangladesh is also participating in the exhibition.
