The WANSUA festival is all about celebrating and displaying love to the beloved. Modernization is a strong force which is seen everywhere today and the area of love is no exception with emotions and love being expressed through various platforms like facebook, twitter etc just to name a few.However the Tiwa community of Khawragaon,a sleepy village in Karbi Anglong in Assam still celebrates the Wansua Festival for three days with traditional fervour and here, the youth use the traditional ways of expressing love to their special ones.Although such traditional ways of expressing love have almost forgotten,it is heartening to see that tradition is still intact in places were development is slow and education an exception.Talking to Eastern Panorama,Pallavi Dutta, Reseach Scholar of Folklore Studies,Gauhati University said,“This old tradition of showing love to the beloved by the youth has been running through ages. On the first day of the festival,the boys drink rice beer(local beer)in the Deka Chang(the young men’s club)and get ready to attract their love through different acts of singing and dancing.”

Interestingly,it is a festival where girls have no role to play except that they get placed in a proud position where all they have to do is enjoy the efforts made by the boy who loves her and tries to win her heart publicly by some traditional ways of singing and dancing.Young girls in groups try to woo boys of their choice during the festival.

Meanwhile,the participants,especially the young boys would grind the rice grains after having rice beer and distribute this among the village people for consumption. Young boys can be seen dancing while holding pumpkins,gourds,pineapples and other products to ensure his love that he can cultivate and has brought the gifts.Young boys also dance with a yarn spinning instrument, with the message to the loved ones that the girl he loves should have skill in weaving.The boys also concentrate on fashion and dresses in the best outfit to impress their dream girls.The items carried by the boy to display his love are symbolic gifts to award a girl if she accepts the proposal.

Folk artistes from nearby villages gather at the host village and perform love songs to spark a romantic atmosphere.“The folk artistes are invited from nearby villages and they are taken care of by a selected family of the host village.They collect the names of young girls of the village on the first day of the three-day festival,”said Maheswar Patar, a local.

However,another equally important aspect of the festival is that it is also about celebration,which is related to a good harvest,a harvest that was done through a co-operation between human beings and the goddesses.As the belief goes, once the goddesses came down to celebrate this festival and also wanted to cultivate.A good production was achieved when the help of human being was taken in the cultivation and thus the celebration began.

“The WANSUA festival is all about celebrating and displaying love to the beloved.”

Every year a different village is chosen to host the most popular festival among the Tiwa people.And this year,it took place in the remote village Khawra gaon located at the lap of green hills,covered with thick clouds and majestic forests,which shape the landscape of this place.It is believed that Wansua is observed after the harvest session to pay tribute to a deity who as they believe,showed them the way to mitigate hunger.During the celebration,people from different villages but from the same clan dance round and round grinding rice grains,from which rice cakes are made and people have a feast.Some sort of sacrifice also takes place during the celebration.

Unlike the celebration of the festival in the other villages,the celebration in Khawra gaon had a special attraction which added an extra flavour to the celebration.There were two participants in a different custom act wearing masks and unusual attires and showing some funny acts believed to dispel the evil spirits from the area.There are also certain other customs maintained during the festival such as the provision that only the members of the same clan from different villages can participate in Wansua.There are various clan and sub-clans in the Tiwa community but not even a single member from a different clan is allowed to be a part of the celebration.

Until a few years back,there was very little that was known about this Tiwa community.However,this festival which they have been celebrating through the ages has earned them not only national but also international repute.People from far off places come down to this remote village and enjoy the celebration.It can be mentioned here that the Tiwa people observe many festivals like Barat,Sarga Miswa,Jon-Beel Mela and so on in the different seasons of the year which are connected with the different deities of their own.Nevertheless,whatever the occasion,songs and dances are always a part of the Tiwa way of life.

Shikha Hazarika