Thursday, April 12, 2012

Bihu time...Rongali bihu







   Rongali Bihu (mid-April, also called Bohag Bihu), the most popular Bihu celebrates the onset of the Assamese New Year (around April 15) and the coming of Spring. This marks the first day of the Hindu solar calendar and is also observed in Bengal, Manipur, Nepal, Orissa, Punjab, Kerala and Tamil Nadu though called by different names. It's a time of merriment and feasting and continues, in general, for seven days. The farmers prepare the fields for cultivation of paddy and there is a feeling of joy around. The women makepithalarus (traditional food made of rice and coconut) and Jolpan which gives the real essence of the season. The first day of the bihu is called goru bihu or cow bihu, where the cows are washed and worshipped, which falls on the last day of the previous year, usually on April 14. This is followed by manuh (human) bihu on April 15, the New Year Day. This is the day of getting cleaned up, wearing new cloths and celebrating and getting ready for the new year with fresh vigor. The third day is Gosai (Gods) bihu; statues of Gods, worshiped in all households are cleaned and worshiped asking for a smooth new year.
The folk songs associated with the Bohag Bihu are called Bihugeets or Bihu songs. The form of celebration and rites vary among different demographic groups.
Rongali Bihu is also a fertility festival, where the bihu dance with its sensous movements using the hips, arms, etc., by the young women call out to celebrate their fertility. In this aspect, the bihu dance can also be called a mating ritual by the young men and women.
Goru Bihu
The goru bihu or cattle worship rites are observed on the last day of the year. The cattle are washed, smeared with ground turmeric and other pastes, struck with sprigs of dighalatiand makhiyati and endeared to be healthy and productive (lao kha, bengena kha, bosore bosore barhi ja/maar xoru, baper xoru, toi hobi bor bor goru—eat gourd, eat brinjal, grow from year to year/your mother is small, your father is small, but you be a large one). The old cattle ropes are cast away through the legs and new ropes are tied to them, and they are allowed to roam anywhere they wished for the entire day.[2]
Manuh Bihu
The New Year day, the day after the goru bihu, is called the manuh bihu. Elders are shown respect, with gifts of bihuwan (a gamosa), a hachoti (kerchief), a cheleng etc., and their blessings are sought. Children are given new clothes, and Husori singing begins on this day, and people visit their relatives and friends.[3]
Husori
Village elders move from household to households singing carols, also in the style of bihu geets, called husoris. It possibly derives from the Dimasa Kachari word formation ha (land) and char (move over): hachari.[4] Villages could have more than one Husori band, and they would visit households in a village non-contiguous to itself, first singing carols at theNaamghar. The husari singers then visit individual households, by first announcing their arrival at the gate (podulimukh) with drum beats. The singers are traditionally welcomed into the courtyard where they sing the husori songs and perform a ring dance. At the end of the performance they are thanked with an offering dakshina of paan (betel leaf) tamul (areka nut) in a xorai (brass dish with stand), whereupon the singers bless the household for the coming year. If there is a bereavement in the family, or the family does not invite the husori singers due to an illness, the husori band offers blessings from podulimukh and move on. Generally the singers are all male.[5]
Fat Bihu
This is a very old form of Bihu, characterized by spontaneity, popular in the Lakhimpur area of Assam. According to legend, the first Ahom king, Sukaphaa, traveled to the region to watch it in the early 13th century.[6]
Beshma
This is celebrated by koches , in this festival 'bhurbhura','shak' are marrimaking and festing,
Mukoli Bihu
Young unmarried men and women attired in traditional golden silk muga dance the bihu and sing bihu songs in the open fields. The songs have themes of romance and sexual love, requited or unrequited. Sometimes the songs describe tragic events too, but treated very lightly. The dance celebrates female sexuality.
Jeng Bihu
This is Bihu dance and song performed and watched only by women. The name "jeng" comes from the fact that in earlier days women in the villages used to surround the place of their performance with sticks dug into the ground called jeng in Assamese. It is also called gos tolor bihu (Bihu beneath tree).
Baisago
The Bodo-Kachari people celebrate for seven days—the first day for cattle (Magou), the second day for man (Mansoi) and ancestor worship, feasting, singing and merriment. Songs follow the same themes as the Bihu songs.[7]
Bihutoli Bihu
The rural festival made its transition to urban life when it was first time brought to the stage in Lataxil field in Guwahati by the Guwahati Bihu Sanmilani in 1962, promoted by leading citizens like Radha Govinda Baruah and others. Bihu to a great extent has been popularized by the Bihu 'Samrat'( king ), of Assam, Khagen Mahanta. Unlike the rural version, the dancers danced on a makeshift elevated stage in an open area that came to be known as a Bihutoli. Many such Bihutolis have sprouted since then in Guwahati and other urban areas. The performances are not confined to the bihu dance form, but may incorporate all forms of theatrical performances to keep the audience enthralled well into the early hours. Performances could include standup comedy, to concerts by solo singers. The stage form of bihu has become so popular, that organizers have begun extending the celebrations tobohagi bidai, or farewell to the Bohag month, which are similar performances held a month later.
Xaat Bihu
Rongali Bihu also called Xaat Bihu (seven Bihus). It celebrates seven days, it's called so. On the other hand, Rangali Bihu is constitute of seven different types of Bihu - Chot Bihu,Raati BihuManuh BihuKutum BihuMela Bihu and Chera Bihu.

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Wednesday, December 14, 2011

30 Great Love Quotes


  Every Day, Every Occasion and especially Valentines Day is a time to just sit back and appreciate love. Thankfully, this is easy to do, as there are plenty of writers who have offered us beautiful words to paint a verbal love image. Here are some great love quotes from names you likely know!

From Movies and Modern Famous People:

1. " I believe that two people are connected at the heart, and it doesn't matter what you do, or who you are or where you live; there are no boundaries or barriers if two people are destined to be together." - Julia Roberts

2.  " Love can touch us one time and last for a lifetime, and never let go till we're gone." - Titanic Theme, My Heart Will Go On

3. "Love is a game that two can play and both win." - Eva Gabor

4. "For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul." - Judy Garland

5. "All you need is love." -John Lennon & Paul McCartney

6. "A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous. "- Ingrid Bergman

7. "To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world." - Brandi Snyder



From Literature and Literary Figures:

8. "The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched- they must be felt with the heart." - Helen Keller

9. " Do you love me because I am beautiful, or am I beautiful because you love me?" - Cinderella
           
10. "What I feel for you seems less of earth and more of a cloudless heaven." - Victor Hugo

11. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” - Corinthians

12. “Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”'- Robert A. Heinlein

13. "Love is of all passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart, & the senses." - Lao Tzu

14. "Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage." - Lao Tzu

15. "Love asks me no questions, And gives me endless support." - William Shakespeare

16. "Love sought is good, but giv’n unsought is better." - William Shakespeare

17. "Thou art to me a delicious torment." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

18. "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it. "- The Bible - Song of Solomon

19. "A hug is like a boomerang - you get it back right away." - Bil Keane

20. "Love conquers all things." -Virgil

21. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever: Its loveliness increases; it will never; Pass into nothingness."  - John Keats

22. "A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace." - Bible - Ecclesiastes

23. "Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies." - Aristotle

24. "Life is a flower of which love is the honey." - Victor Hugo

25. "As soon go kindle fire with snow. As seek to quench the fire of love with words." - William Shakespeare

26. "All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love." - Leo Tolstoy

27. "A woman would run through fire and water for such a kind heart." - William Shakespeare

28. "At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet." - Plato

29. "Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius." - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

30. "We come to love not by finding a perfect person but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly. ." - Sam Keen


Tuesday, May 24, 2011

The Mystery of Rohan Rathore (from 'The Hindustan Times')

   It’s a story that would touch anyone’s heart — Rohan Rathore, an IIT-Guwahati student, loved a girl who didn’t reciprocate his feelings. He composed a heart-wrenching number for her and died of cancer 15 days later. The song, titled Emptiness, became a rage online, with around 15 lakh views
and eight dedicated Facebook groups with thousands of fans. However, there is a hitch. Apparently, Rohan Rathore does not exist. Gajendra Verma, a 21-year-old sound recordist from Mumbai, says that he has sung the song, written by Aseem Ahmed Abbasee, a writer, and Verma’s friend, Monami Roy. To counter the Rohan Rathore story, Verma will be releasing the complete album with six songs next month, and has already posted the song on YouTube, with a slideshow of his pictures. “I had composed the tune for a project one-and-a-half years ago. I had sent the song to some people for feedback, and I think it got leaked then,” says Verma.
         Reacting to allegations that he and Aseem cooked up this story to publicise the song and increase downloads, he says, “Why would I publicise my song using someone else’s name?” He adds, “I feel really bad when I see someone else’s name on my song. I don’t even know how Rohan Rathore’s name got attached to it. I know that the voice is mine.” Aseem Abbasee, the lyricist, says he is unaware about the Rohan Rathore story. “I wrote this song when Gajendra approached me for it. Its unfortunate that it got stolen and people attached a false story with it.”
        Shortly after the song became popular, fans got curious. Sumit Lal wrote, “I finally dug out the story. No one at IIT-G knows who Rathore is.” “People like the song because of the story behind it.”

                                                                                                                       Source

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Lyrics of Rohan Rathore's "Emptyness"

Ho love of mine..

with a song and a whine..

You’re harsh and divine..

like truths and a lie..

but the tale end is not here..

I’ve nothing to fear..

for my love is yell of giving and hold on…

in the bright emptiness..

in a room full of it..

is the cruel mistress ho ho o…

I feel the sunrise..

that nest all hollowness..

for i have the way to go.. not come…

And i feel so lonely yea..

There’s a better place from this emptiness..
And i’m so lonely yea..

There’s a better please from this emptiness.. yei yei yei ya….

Aa.. aa.. aa…..

Tune mere jaana..

Kabhi nahi jana..

Ishq mera dard mera.. haaye…

Tune mere jaana..

Kabhi nahi jana..

Ishq mera dard mera …

Aashiq teraaa..

Bheed mein khoya rehta hai..

Jaane jahaan a..

Puchho toh itna kehta hai..

And i feel so lonely yea..

There’s a better place from this emptiness..

And i’m so lonely yea..

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

bR0keN heArtS.......imAges

* This pics are gathered from various sites..........thnx to the guys who upl0aded them ;-)