No bonfires to light up Asom village

Guwahati, Jan 13 (UNI) The traditional bonfire or 'mazi' (logs and hay stacked together in open fields and lit on Bihu day before sunrise) could symbolise Bhogali Bihu for the Assamese, but for the people of a forlorn village in Jorhat in Upper Asom, the fire of the ''mazi'' means agony.

The traditional pithas and ladus are baked in every household of Morongial village in Nakachari area, about 31 km from Jorhat town.

All other fun-fare and rituals associated with the Bhogali Bihu, the feasting festival of the state, are also closely observed.

But perhaps the most exciting and engaging ritual of building the mazis and lighting them at the crack of dawn on Bihu is missed by the villagers. The present generation, and even their couple of predecessors, had never known the joy of the ''mazi.'' Building and lighting of this ritualistic bonfire was stopped in this village of Morongial more than two centuries ago.

A youth of the village was burnt alive in the bonfire when he fell into the burning stack; the incident had occurred some 200 years back.

Village elder Mahim Gogoi Medhi, now 99 years, informed that the village had stopped lighting the ''mazi'' since the accident. But when Mr Medhi, during his teens in the first quarter of the last century, tried to revive the tradition, it again met with ill luck.

He said, ''In 1921 or '22, along with two of my friends, I tried to revive the tradition. But within a few days after Bhogali Bihu, a bout of small pox visited the village and 19 people died.'' Since then, no one had dared to build or light the ''mazi'' in this village, the grand old man of the village said, with tears welling in his eyes. ''Being Assamesee, we miss not being able to light the ''mazi.'' But no one is greater than the forces of nature,'' he added.

''No one knows what had angered the forces of the elements that it strikes back with such vengeance whenever the villagers try to build the mazis after the incident two centuries ago,'' he said.

With the youngsters also fearing to draw the ire of the nature's forces by reviving the tradition of the bonfire at sunrise (mazi), the village could perhaps have to wait for another century for the fires to light up again.

UNI