200 Years On, Where Grain is Worshipped and Farmers are Felicitated.

Bolagarh,12/09 (PPT): In Odisha, there is a festival that not only fills the stomach but also unites hearts. It is Nuakhai. It is the great festival of food, the food-provider, unity, agrarian life and equality. With its celebration, years of ill-feelings and ego are washed away. The young and old embrace each other and the entire village becomes one family.

While this festival is celebrated with great joy in Western Odisha, the same tradition and devotion can still be seen in Sampur village, under Bolagarh Block of Khordha district in Eastern Odisha. Here, this festival is not just celebrated, it is lived.

On Nuakhai day, villagers of Sampur wake up early, take a holy bath and wear new clothes. Then everyone gathers at the village’s presiding deity, Lord Balunkeshwar Mahadev Temple There, newly harvested rice, new rice flakes (Chuda), banana, mango, apple, coconut and other fruits are offered to the Lord as Nabanna Bhog. This is gratitude to nature and the farmer.

After the puja, the festival of brotherhood begins. All villagers take the Nabanna Prasad – Pitha, Pana, Puri, Khiri, sweets, dal, curry, spinach, chutney etc. – to their homes and relish it together. The most beautiful sight of this day is juniors touching the feet of their elders and seeking blessings, which is called ‘Nuakhai Juhar’.

According to legend, Princess Muktadei, daughter of the King of Khordha, was married to Jayanta Singh, King of Sambalpur. In 1817, due to a dispute between the Marathas and the British, she came to stay in Panchagarh kingdom which she had received as dowry. At that time, the Paikas of Khordha-Bolagarh region did not accept the harsh rule of the British. While staying at Sampur, the capital of Panchagarh, Queen Muktadei of Sambalpur started the festival of her native land, Nuakhai, here, which has been continuing uninterruptedly for more than 200 years from 1817 till today.

This is the unity of Odisha – the festival of the West in the soil of the East, the Queen of the East preserving the culture of the West.Nuakhai Juhar!

Reporter by-Susanta Kumar Pradhan.