Barter by the beel| India Water Portal

This was my first time here. I had heard of this festival, perhaps the only existing one in India, where barter takes place at such a scale. Jon Beel mela in Jon Beel, Jagiroad Assam- a historic festival where people from the hills and plains come together for a unique exchange of goods and agricultural produce near a moon-shaped wetland. A place of extremes, of new and old, rustic and modern.

The annual three-day festival has been celebrated since the 15th century at the end of Magh Bihu. First held under the aegis of the King of the erstwhile Gova kingdom, people from Tiwa, Karbi, Khasi and Garo tribes came together for barter, community fishing and dorbar where the King joined the people for a community feast.

The Nuan puja (prayer ceremony to mark the rice harvest) is carried out using the fish from the beel. Over a lakh people visit this festival and around 10,000 indigenous people from the distant hills come down all the way to celebrate with their counterparts from the plains. “If the beel is destroyed, the whole culture of fishing here, the mela may disappear”, asserted Jurshing Bordoloi, Secretary Jonbeel Mela Organising Committee.

Buying and selling. I progressed to find a huge sprawl of colourful commercial stalls in the field near the wetland, lined with everything from clothes to food, toys to knives. People plunged in, some alone, some in groups, bargaining for a rupee or two to get the best deal. The deal I was hungry to see was being set up on the other side.

One or two from the group dug a piece of earth to make a chulha for cooking jhum rice and fish or meat in bamboo tubes for lunch.

There are various dance performances by these communities, cockfights and fish melas during the fair. A group from Dimoria perform a dance on the joy of fishing.

The barter trade begins the next morning. People from the plains exchange pithas (traditional Assamese rice cakes), chira (flattened rice), fish and other eatables with Jhum ginger, turmeric, chilly, herbs among others with those from the hills- a unique ritual that has kept alive a feeling of give and take while money changed hands in nearby stalls, a few metres away.

Mangaljyoti Bhuyan from Morigaon who has been coming to the Jon beel mela for the last 12 years exchanged pitha, jalpan and fish with the ginger, turmeric and gourds from the tribes of the hills. He says, “It is not profitable, rather expensive for us to give fish for vegetables. But we still do it as the festival brings all of us together. My forefathers also came and my children will also come”.

Community fishing is an important practice during this fair. People flock in huge numbers during this day to fish together.

“I have been fishing in this festival every year for the last three decades, the fish number has gone down, said Sunder Bordoloi, a teacher in Naukhula village, Jagiroad.

Its still cold in Assam in January but that is no reason to deter the spirit of the people. Hundreds of people throng to fish, some from the banks and some neck deep in chilled waters. After fishing for an hour or two, people rush to warm themselves near a fire

A fisherman shows his catch before leaving the beel

For ages now, Jon beel has set the stage for the festival to blend barter and business, hills and the plains and culture and modernization. Maybe it is time, the beel took a breather and got some attention from all those who benefit from it.

Posted by Usha Dewani