The Party that is Bihu! Happy New Year from Assam!
It is Bihu, April 14th, and the new year started this morning. Yesterday was the traditional start to the Bihu Festival, Bihu eve if you will. It is a celebration of Assamese culture. Bihu is indigenous to Assam and actually comes from the villages. But as with most things, it has become more centralized and commercialized, and so the celebration in the capital of Guwahati is ground zero and a perfect place to spend what has become a holding pattern in our flight for permits.
Friday’s paper included a map of the 18 venues around Guwahati, and we have actually been given invitations for one of the largest from the owner of a PCO (public call office), who happens to be one of the organizers, when we were in making permit calls. So tonight we will take an auto-rickshaw Assam Engineering College Field and see if we really are VIP material!
I say that only partly in jest as yesterday we were somehow accorded just that status. We arrived at the Student Union venue about noon and stood in whatever shade we could find around the arena circle. We watched group after group perform folk songs and dances while wearing brightly colored costumes, the audience members dancing and singing along in their places. Constantly we were being accorded better viewing, asked where we were from, asked how we liked Bihu, and were constantly being wished Happy Bihu with the firmer handshakes of the Assamese. (Traditional Indian handshakes are quite limp-wristed affairs.) At some point we were approached by venue officials, escorted to the main viewing area, and seated in the 4th row, just behind a “famous” Indian film actress from Assam here to help open the festival. She was constantly accosted for autographs but took time to be introduced to us. As the ceremonies reached their climax the crowd came in from all sides and filled the arena with dancing and singing. Earlier the winner of what here passes for “Indian Idol” sang to swooning fans, young and old, and was quite good, his performance limited only by the PA system. We were being led across the arena to be taken to the Union building for a traditional Assamese meal but were swamped by dancers wising us Happy Bihu and asking how we came to be here. Of course we had come for Bihu; nothing so crass a some RA permits for Arunanchal Pradesh!) No matter how many hands you shook there were always three more waiting. It only ended when the TV cameras were on us and we were asked if we might be interviewed. Jim acted as our spokesperson, introduced each of us, and thanked everyone for such high hospitality. Then each of us was asked our impressions of Bihu and the Assamese people. By this point our glowing answers contained no flattery; it was indeed amazing! Finally we were led away to the Student Union hall (the old Hall of Martyrs, circa 1900) where we were fed, photographed and each presented by the president a Bihuwon, the traditional Assamese scarf worn at Bihu and symbolizing the Assamese people. So, by 4pm we had a bit more idea what it must be like to be Mick Jagger.
Last night, at a venue just next to the High Court building, we watched a very different presentations of story-telling through acting and dance. This was a highly polished performance of tribal storytelling, the import of which was largely missed by us but not unappreciated. But the evening had gotten too long for me, so I headed for home leaving Jim and Ann to close the show.
One word about the weather. It has been 34°C/93°F or more everyday since I got to Indian. It felt marginally cooler the other morning when I arrived in Guwahati at 04:30, but Saturday it had maxed itself out at 39.5°C/103°F, making it physically difficult to keep going. Added to the noise, the dust, the filth, the mass of humanity, it seemed unbearable. That level of heat exhausts you but makes sleeping a sweaty chore under the mosquito net, especially when the fan quits due to a power outage.
I mention this not because it is unusual but because of what happened Saturday night. The wind was blowing late Saturday afternoon. I was loving it, windows wide open, fan not needed. But Deboo told me to close them all before I went to bed, that we would get rain. I mostly complied, leaving open those close to my bed. At 02:04 I was awakened by thunder and blowing, and rain coming in the open windows. I now know I have a tin roof above me. It was so hard, so violent, so much rain that I hardly got one window latched before another blew back open. One I held with a rubber band, another was stuck, luckily mostly closed. Rain blew from the terrace under the bathroom door making for a gritty mess I needed to sloosh off before I could shower in the morning. The tempest lasted about an hour, and I listened from under my mosquito net, power off, no fan.
