Many
of the friends of Sanjay Kumar Sinha, including yours
truly, asked him to throw a party after he got promoted
to the Indian Forest Service (IFS) cadre. Sinha, who at
present is posted as the divisional forest officer of
Hazaribagh, however evaded his duty on the pretext of
the ongoing month of Saawan when even "carnivorous"
Hindus stay off meat and drinks. And for us, it's hard
to conceive of a party without either.
Saawan
is regarded as a "divine" month in the Hindu
pantheon, when the faithful go to Deoghar to offer holy
(Ganga) water to Lord Vaidyanath. Those who don't or can't
go to the divine city, observe austerity. Thus, many of
our friends appreciated Sanjay's plea to defer the party
beyond August 9, when Saawan ends.
Like
Sanjay, whom I befriended during our student days in Patna
University, others have deferred their parties in "reverence"
to the holy month. Though Ranchi and other parts may be
wet with heavy downpour for the past several days, party
lovers are undergoing a distressful dry spell.
Ironically,
the blue-blooded Jharkhand people, including adivasis
and Mahtos, don't attach such a "divine" importance
to saawan, despite the fact that Lord Vaidyanath has his
"home" in the state's Santhal Pargana. The tribals
and Mahtos eat pork and mutton and drink their mahua and
hadia, as usual. And very few of original Jharkhand people
carry the holy water to offer it to Lord Vaidyanath.
The
practice of staying away from non-vegetarian food in saawan
is in vogue primarily in Bihar. In fact, it is hard to
find even roadside dhabas and eateries along the 400 kilometre
Kishenganj-Purnea-Khagaria-Begusarai-Patna stretch selling
meat and fish during saawan.
In
fact, leave fish and meat aside, one can't even spot dishes
cooked with garlic or onion on the 110-kilometer Sultanganj-Deoghar
stretch that the kanwarias take to reach the Vaidyanath
temple — at Sultanganj on the bank of the Ganga in
Bihar. The kanwarias fill their pitchers with holy water
and embark on 110-km journey on foot to reach the temple
referred to as Vaidyanath dham.
Senior
citizens of Ranchi say that primarily the citizens from
Bihar, particularly those belonging to north Bihar, are
the ones who desist from eating meat and chicken during
saawan. In many Ranchi localities like Harihar Sigh Lane
and Jaiprakash Nagar in Morabadi and Bariatu and a large
settlement of vegetable-sellers in Kutchery and Ashok
Nagar are heavily populated with people from the mother
state. So it is the impact of Bihar's religious temperament
and tradition, which is pronounced in many parts of the
city.
"The
sale of chilly-chicken, bread-roll and other non-vegetarian
items, has gone down considerably. It's because Rajputs,
Brahmins and Bhumihars from Bihar, who live in the colonies
around my shop have stopped eating them," says Bishun
Mahto, who runs a small roadside kiosk near Rajendra Institute
of Medical Sciences. "We, people from Jharkhand,
keep on eating non-veg food and drink our mahua and hadia.
The month of saawan has no impact on our food habit,"
Bishun says.
"All
the bigger ration, garment, stationary and medicine shops
around my kiosk are owned mainly by people from Bihar.
Most of them, who otherwise visit our shop to eat, stay
away in this season," says Bishun's wife Pushpa,
who assists her husband in running the business.
Similarly
the meat-seller before Bishun's eatery across the road,
who otherwise stays busy slicing the meat pieces and selling
them to the long queue before him, stays idle mostly with
few buyers turning up. The Muslim meat-seller in the same
locality, dominated by the Bihar Hindus, too, is eagerly
awaiting the end of saawan.
Whether
you believe it to be the mercy of Vaidyanath (Lord Shiva)
or the "divinity" attached to the time, many
goats and chickens are able to save their lives.
But,
I am afraid that when saawan ends with the Shiva-devotees
breaking the shackles of protracted patience they would
rush to the meat shops in hordes. That will be a day of
catastrophe for chickens and goats and a jubilant time
for the meat-sellers. And party time for some of us, observing
"divinity".
