A four hundred year old ghost plays spoilsport in this Jharkhand Village
While the rest of Jharkhand may have celebrated the Holi festival with the usual amount of gaiety, there was certainly no cheer in a little hamlet just twenty kilometres away from Bokaro city.
There is no music, no dance and no colours on Holi. A pall of gloom shrouds the village of Durgapur in the Kasmar block, along the Bokaro-Ranchi route. The fear of Holi can easily be seen in the eyes of the villagers.
The villagers, eight thousand of them, daren’t play Holi for fear of antagonising the spirit of a tribal chieftain who held sway over the territory some four centuries ago.
The Chieftain, named Durga, lost a battle during the Holi festival and took an aversion to colours. On his deathbed, he warned his people that misfortune would visit them and their descendants if they did not stay away from colours.
The priest Belaram Mahto says that the people believe that the curse is binding. “The King would give severe punishments to the people who disobeyed his orders.” Even after his death, it is believed that anyone who played Holi in the village encountered severe misfortunes, wasting sickness and gruesome death.
“Our ancestors have warned us against touching colours during the festival. In our village, the inhabitants do not perform the ritual bath at Holi. They still believe that if they celebrate the festival, it will bring bad omens and that the spirit of the king will punish them. A few years ago, some fishermen who were visitors, broke the tradition by playing with colours on Holi. An epidemic brought much suffering to the village that year.”
Every second person in the village has strange tales to tell about the vengeful ghostly spirit of the Chieftain. Superstition or not, no resident of Durgapur village touches colours during the festival. Even the folk living in the neighbouring villages avoid Durgapur around this festival.
There is no music, no dance and no colours on Holi. A pall of gloom shrouds the village of Durgapur in the Kasmar block, along the Bokaro-Ranchi route. The fear of Holi can easily be seen in the eyes of the villagers.
The villagers, eight thousand of them, daren’t play Holi for fear of antagonising the spirit of a tribal chieftain who held sway over the territory some four centuries ago.
The Chieftain, named Durga, lost a battle during the Holi festival and took an aversion to colours. On his deathbed, he warned his people that misfortune would visit them and their descendants if they did not stay away from colours.
The priest Belaram Mahto says that the people believe that the curse is binding. “The King would give severe punishments to the people who disobeyed his orders.” Even after his death, it is believed that anyone who played Holi in the village encountered severe misfortunes, wasting sickness and gruesome death.
“Our ancestors have warned us against touching colours during the festival. In our village, the inhabitants do not perform the ritual bath at Holi. They still believe that if they celebrate the festival, it will bring bad omens and that the spirit of the king will punish them. A few years ago, some fishermen who were visitors, broke the tradition by playing with colours on Holi. An epidemic brought much suffering to the village that year.”
Every second person in the village has strange tales to tell about the vengeful ghostly spirit of the Chieftain. Superstition or not, no resident of Durgapur village touches colours during the festival. Even the folk living in the neighbouring villages avoid Durgapur around this festival.
Nobody dares to smear a native of Durgapur village with colour either, for fear of the breaking the taboo.
1 comment:
a ghastlt
ghory
ghostlt
holi
tale
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