GUWAHATI: Only a day is left for Magh Bihu, the much vaunted annual harvest festival in Assam. People of all walks of life are gearingn to celebrate the occasion with traditional pomp and zeal frm Saturday.
Folks are busy with the erecting Bhelaghar, a make shift house of bamboo and straw for community feasting and merry making on Saturday night.
Shops and markets in urban and semi urban areas are teeming with the people for last minute shopping.
In the rural areas, the women folks are busy with preparing traditional Assamese sweets and pastries to be served their near and dear ones on the occasion.
People in many areas are locked in an undeclared competition with the Bhela Ghars. “If the people of a tiny place in Nagaon are erecting the Parlaiment House with bamboo and straw a group of villagers in Dhemaji are busy in building the historic Kareng Ghar. That’s the comptition,” Subal Das, a retired school teacher said in Jorhat.
A Supreme Court instruction has forced the people of Aahotguri in Nagaon to shy away from organizing the traditional buffalo fight much to the disappointment of lakhs of people across the state.
Same it is in the caseof the native villagers in Hajo, a pilgrimes site in Kamrup district, nearly 20 KM away from the city of Guwahati.
They have to skip the bird fighting following the apex court order prohibitng the taditional game.
On Sunday morning the people would lit up the wooden and bamboo structure (Meji) to offer puja to the firegod.
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