Lyrics of Love and Life : The Myriad Themes of Bihu Songs

Kirti Kamal Bhuyan Springtime Rongali Bihu stands as the most popular of all the prime festivals of the Assamese people. While Bohag represe...

Kirti Kamal Bhuyan

Springtime Rongali Bihu stands as the most popular of all the prime festivals of the Assamese people. While Bohag represents the first month of the Assamese calendar year, etymologically the word ‘Rongali’ derives from the noun ‘rong’, meaning both colour and fun. And so, quite expectedly, Rongali Bihu is the festival of colour as showcased by Mother Nature around, as also of fun and frolic being indulged in by the people at large. And the Bihu songs -known both as Bihugeet and Bihunaam in Assamese - are pivotal as an accompaniment to the dance and music that mark the Bihu festivities. There is also Bonghosha or ‘pastoral songs’ as Dr. Prafulladutta Goswami, the eminent scholar and critic, puts it, terming it as an “extension of Bihunaam” which is a highly erotic version of Bihunaam itself, usually sung antiphonally by young men and women in the open – river ghats, fields, under big trees or in groves away from home. However, presumably during Ahom rule, this genre of songs was forbidden when the innovation of husori took place in order to make husori and Bihu presentable before the regal audience.

Bihu is primarily associated with the fertility cult entrenched in Assam’s agrarian past. And this cult used to subscribe to the theory of motherhood of Earth. This helped the belief to gain ground in society that it is possible to goad Mother Earth’s youthfulness, as well as urge Her to produce crops through the vibrations wrought upon Her surface by ceremonial Springtime dancing by energetic young men and women clad in the best of attire. And this is why our Bihugeet revolves around Assam’s pastoral life, marked by farming, animal husbandry, spinning and weaving, fishing and socio-cultural and religious occasions.

There is not even a single detail in the entire gamut of Assam’s pastoral life that Bihu songs have left untouched. But it is love – ubiquitous, universal trait–that reigns supreme as far as Bihu songs are concerned. A large number of Bihu songs embody the spirit of love. There is a saying that if a young heart fails to make love in the regal presence of Rituraj Basanta, whose advent itself spreads romance in the air, then he or she is a failure as a youngster.

A Bihu song is a quatrain with identical rhythms. While the first two lines speak of an eternal truth about life, death, world, God, etc., or a particular situation happening in the realm of nature, the concluding two lines bare the heart of the singer. A Bihu song is set to a catchy tune depending on its content. Bihu songs pertaining to love allude to one’s yearning for one’s sweetheart, the melancholy of separation, or the irresistible will to attain one’s love. And a lot of these songs are antiphonal in character – every single piece is sung to one’s beloved who, in turn, responds by singing his or her version. Here’s an example where a young man sings to his love-

“Nolile halile nodali bholuka  

Potharole halile kako

Kher xukuwadi xukaiso aijoni

Kaloi sinta kori thako?"

(Leand onto the river the riverside bholuka bamboo

While onto the farmland leans the kako bamboo

Who are you worried about

That has come to be so telling upon your health

As you are thinning 

Like a piece of dried hay?)

The beloved, a damsel, responds-

“Nixare horili tuponi dhone oi

Bhokore horili bhaat

Toloi sinta kori thakote najano

Ki hoise xorilor gaat”

(It’s you only who has stolen my night’s sleep

My hunger by the day

So lost am I in my thoughts about you

That I know not what has befallen my health)

The love that bloomed this way usually culminated in the couple entering socially acceptable wedlock. But in the event of society standing in their way, they often had to take recourse to elopement. Later on, at an opportune time, the fleeing couple returned to their native village, whereupon a meeting of the village community was arranged at the namghar. The couple then offered tamol-paan on a Bota and genuflected before the gathering, praying for recognition of their marriage. The community declared them a formally married couple. The practice was in vogue till the 1950s.

Farming, more particularly Sali and Ahu paddy farming, and animal husbandry together form an integral part of Assam’s pastoral life and its economy. References abound in Bihu songs about these two aspects, including subjects such as fertility of the land, flood menace, phases of ploughing, planting and reaping of crops.

The loom used to be a coveted possession of any Assamese household. In the olden days, it was customary for young women to learn spinning and weaving. Any damsel who failed on this count was frowned upon by the society and addressed by the derisive epithet ‘thupori’. There are a number of Bihu songs that hail the craftsmanship of the Assamese weavers who, Gandhiji had said, “weave dreams on their looms”. The weavers, too, have a different set of Bihu songs of their own that speak of their trade and weal and woe.

Fishing also occupies a notable place in Assam’s rural life. The community fishing on occasions like Bihu continues to remain a popular practice. Thus, fishing is an interesting subject for Bihu songs.

Gods and Goddesses also feature in Bihu songs. It is also interesting to note that Bihu songs eulogise Bihu in eloquent terms. Bihu dancers and musical instruments pertaining to Bihu –  dhol, pepa, toka, gogona and sutuli, as well as their respective players, find their due place in Bihu songs.

Some other notable domains that Bihu songs refer to are – the beauty of Assamese women, obligations of conjugal life, abiding importance of tamol-paan in pastoral Assam, and also our social life with a defying note against the strictures imposed upon intercaste lovers by the society. Bihu songs have also adapted themselves to the change of time and situations by taking into their fold subjects as varied as the tea industry, oil company, railways, steamer company under the British Raj and ‘Gandhi’, ‘Nehru’, Chinese aggressions, etc.

To wind up, while as a nation, we take pride over  the fact that, as Dr. Prafulladutta Goswami puts it, “There is no scope for doubt that Assam’s Bihu songs are some of the finest folk poetry that the world possesses,” perhaps we have to realise and act by what one of the worthiest sons of the soil, the great maestro, Dr. Bhupen Hazarika fervently urged through his sonorous voice: 

“Bohag eti matho rhitu nohoi

Nohoi Bohag eti maah

Axomiya Jatir ee ayux Rekha

Gana jibonor ee xaah”

(Neither just a season is Bohag

Nor simply a month

Life-line is it,

Of the Assamese nation

And yes, a source of valour to the public life)

(Mail address of the author: bhuyan.kirtikamal@gmail.com)