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4 G-View Recently, when there was a grenade blast at Paltan Bazar, I was reporting the incident and something amazed me! I saw some saffron clad people coming from the railway station, shouting ‘Bol Bam.’ Guwahati is known for the spirit it emanates towards all the festivals. Be it Bihu, Ambubachi, Holi, Eid, Durga Puja or Christmas, the citizens celebrate all the festivals with the zeal of joy and happiness. Now it’s Bol Bam. We all knew that it is a festival related to Lord Shiva but did not have any real knowledge about it. When everyone in Paltan Bazar were fear-stricken by the blast, with people scattering away and cops chasing everyone away from the spot, these people in their proud saffron attires were least bothered about the chaos. When I asked one of them if he was not scared about the terror in the city, he simply replied, “Bol Bam and even you will be protected from all evils. Lord Shiva has blessed us and these small blasts cannot kill us.” Bol Bam It was a ritual for devotees of Shiva in North India, known as Kānwarias, who travelled to Hindu pilgrimage places of Haridwar, Gaumukh and Gangotri in Uttarakhand to fetch the holy waters of the Ganges River and offer it at their local Shiva temples. The Yatra takes place during the sacred month of Shravan (Saawan) in July – August, according to the Hindu calendar. The Yatra used to be a small affair undertaken by a few saints and older devotees until the 1990s, when it started gaining popularity. These days, lakhs of devotees from surrounding states of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Punjab and some from as far as Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh reach these places to participate in the Kanwar Mela. In Guwahati too, previously only the Hindi speaking people living here use to fetch water from the Bashishtha Ganga and offer it to the Shiv ling at the Shukreshwar Shiva Temple. At present, people from all races and religions participate in the ritual and throng the Bashishtha and Shukreshwar temples during the Shravan month. Priest Sushanta Sharma from the Bashishtha Temple says, “Since 1985, the footfall of devotees has been increasing gradually. Since the last 10 years, even the Assamese and Bengalis have started participating in Bol Bam with full enthusiasm.” He added that in the past it was considered as a festival of the north, but now not only people from this region, but even people from different countries throng to the festival. The other side Sandhya Kalita, a shopkeeper at Bashishtha, is scared to keep her shop open in the evenings during Bol Bam festival. “At night, people are mostly drunk and stoned. They create a lot of chaos and even fight a lot. I am a woman and scared that they might harm me. So, I call it a day early in the evening.” Bhargav Kalita, a local resident of Bashishtha said, “At nights there are some shops which sell alcohol and marijuana illegally. People, who drink and dope fight with others, tease girls and behave very rudely. They come in groups so it’s difficult to stop them. They are calm when there are cops around, but the cops are not everywhere.” Priest Sushanta Sharma expressed, “Not all come with the intention of pleasing the Almighty. Many people come here just for enjoyment. We see inebriated people coming here during the festival and when our security personnel try to stop them, they say it is Lord Shiva’s prasad.” A wine store salesman at Paltan Bazaar said, “The saffron dressed people who move around the city during Bol Bam give us a GPLUS AUG 10 - AUG 16, 2013 BOL BAM!SCREAMS GUWAHATI An orange wave of people snakes through the G.S. Road at night. An integral part of Guwahati, the Bol Bam breaks the monotony of the city every year. raHUL CHanDa “at nights there are some shops which sell alcohol and marijuana illegally. People, who drink and dope fight with others, tease girls and behave very rudely. They come in groups so it’s difficult to stop them. They are calm when there are cops around, but the cops are not everywhere” lot of business. During evenings there is a rush in our shop.” The spirit According to a priest of the Sukreshwar temple, Gokul Sharma, Bol Bam has turned out to be a big festival in Guwahati. He expressed, “there is a Shiva temple at Bashishtha too, but as the ritual requires some effort, the devotees make it a point that they walk till Sukreshwar bare foot and then offer the Bashishtha Ganga water to Lord Shiva.” He added that thousands of people throng to
GPLUS AUG 10 - AUG 16, 2013 5 BOL BAM: Images of various rituals being performed across the city. Sukrehswar from Bashishtha on Sunday nights. As it is believed that Monday is Lord Shiva’s birthday, people feel blessed to offer the holy water on that day. So, on Sunday evening they go to Bhashishtha to fetch water, walk till Sukreshwar temple bare footed, wait till late night and after 12, as it becomes Monday, they offer the holy water. We met a man clad in saffron, Bhupendra Deka from Nalbari, who was crawling on his knees and moving towards Sukreshwar from Bhashishtha. “Since the last 4 years, I have been coming every Shravan to pray to Lord Shiva. I am physically fit by God’s grace and believe if I keep worshiping Lord Shiva, I will never fall ill. The more pain you undergo in life, the more blessings you get.” Similarly, many people crawl on their knees to impress lord Shiva! It is true that people have turned festivals and rituals into entertainment sources, but there are also people who undertake a lot of pain to impress the almighty. They crawl on their knees for hours fighting the natural forces like rain and heat. It is unfashionable to “Since the last 4 years, i have been coming every _ to pray to Lord Shiva. i am physically fit by God’s grace and believe if i keep worshiping Lord Shiva, i will never fall ill. The more pain you undergo in life, the more blessings you get.” show your devotion towards the almighty in the so called post-modern society, but people like Deka like to remain out of fashion. Helping hand While walking bare foot, the devotees are on a fast and hence, they can drink only water. From Bashishtha to Sukleshwar there are many places were free water is distributed to the Kanwars. Rupam Das, a businessman at Lal Ganesh distributes free water to the devotees. He expressed, “I distribute free water every year and indirectly earn blessings. I don’t get time to visit the temple and offer holy water to Lord Shiva, so, I feel helping the Kanwars is like worshiping God.” Rinku Pandey, a devotee said, “I cannot have food before offering the holy water to Lord Shiva. We have to wait in a long queue outside Sukreshwar, so I feel thirsty very often. I thank all the people who provide water to us.” There are also various organisations that put up food stalls at the Sukreshwar temple to feed the devotees after they finish offering water to Lord Shiva. A shopkeeper at Sukreshwar said, “Mostly, Marwaris provide food to the devotees.” Dirty Guwahati During the month of Shravan, if you move around Guwahati on Monday mornings, the entire city is filled with scattered plastic glasses. It is understood that devotion pleases God, but is it not true that God loves the environment too? Offering water to the devotees is a noble endeavour, but throwing the plastic glasses into dust bins can add up to the amount of blessings gained from the almighty. Dewan Gill, a sweeper, irritated by the amount of hard work he did cleaning up Paltan Bazar, angrily said, “How will they earn blessings. Just going to God doesn’t gives you power. You need to be socially literate too, to woo the God.” No matter there will be G-View PHOTO COURTESY: Internet a civic sense oriented or a clean Guwahati in future, but the spirit of festivals and culture will never be killed by the effect of modernisation. Like Ambubachi, even Bol Bam is becoming a national ritual for the entire country. But, how long will people use the excuse of festivals to get high and drunk? When will people like Dewan Gill not have to curse the devotees? When will there be a chaos less and clean festival organised in the land of Maa Kamakhya?
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