By Anshul Akhoury
The starting of April’s Harvest Season holds significance in India. Every community celebrates the arrival of this phase in their own unique way. In Assam, it is called Bihu, in Arunachal Pradesh, the Galo Tribe celebrates Mopin Festival, up north in Punjab it becomes Baisakhi and is known as Gudi Padwa in Maharashtra.
The Konyak tribe of Nagaland celebrates this festival with much enthusiasm. The three-day extravaganza is known as Aolaeng Festival. Various parts of Mon district, where this community is present in majority, organise their own events that go on for a day or two. Mon, however, has the grandest celebration.
Every Konyak woman is a leader and she has an active role in the matters of the household as well as the important social decisions. Women pass on the traditional values like folk stories, dance and music to the coming generations so that it is not lost. This year, the community decided to recognize these qualities and offer the respect to their women-folks in the most beautiful way possible.
The last day of Aolaeng Festival saw a gathering of 4,707 women from various colonies of Mon Town. These women in their traditional clothing, jewellery and makeup performed their traditional dance. The mission was to attempt an entry into the Guinness Book of World Records. The condition laid by the official committee was that a troop of 2,500 women performs the dance for five minutes. They completed the time limit and with almost double the number of performers the organisers had aimed for.
It rained heavily on the day of performance. It seemed that the activity would be called off. Despite the bad weather, women dressed up and left to practise at 7 am. By 10 am, a huge crowd had gathered inside and outside Mon Ground. The drum played at 11 am and everyone cheered wishing them good luck. The women performed their dance which from an aerial view looked as if a field with beautiful flowers in colours of black, yellow and white were slowly and delicately floating in the wind.
Travelling to Mon is not easy. A 14-hour journey from Dimapur is very tiring and back-breaking. But once you see the sights of the valley and the hills, that restlessness goes away and you find a new energy. Mon is a lovely place with rich culture worthy of visiting at-least once.
(The author is a solo traveller and
backpacker. He frequently collaborates with magazines and newspapers for travel articles & photographs)