Nuakhai Juhar,
Happy Nuakhai 2024.(8th September, 2024)
"juhar" literally means "namaste", Juhaar is a peculiar term used in the tribal belt of Jharkhand and Western Odisha.
Nuakhai as a festival is also rooted in Agriculture(Paddy, in particular). The first harvest of the granary is offered to "kul devi/devta" and "gram devta", and then that is distributed among all in the family to mark the celebration of this event "Nuakhai".
Nuakhai falls every year on the next day of Ganesh Chaturthi.
Nua= New and Khai= food
So it is basically a festival of harvesting or possessing the new grains of rice.
A lot has changed with industrialization. For the economic benefits, most of the grains are hybrid in nature these days and the tenure has also stretched to 120-130 days(from sowing to harvesting), so in reality, harvesting season is in Nov/December in my locality, but we used to get some fresh harvest(of paddy) from the hilly areas to celebrate this festival and precisely for performing the rituals of offering the fresh grain to deities.
After offering and distributing the "NUA CHAULA(newly harvested rice)" to all family members, the members of the lineage of a particular family gather and perform "NUAKHAI BHETGHAT" and then they assemble together to enjoy the feast.
In the evening time, the celebration further expands and the people join and gather together to dance like anything to tune in the frequency of celebration.
You can see the NUAKHAI feast and the different cuisines of NUAKHAI. Culturally we are supposed to eat on "sal leaf" plates(hand woven) on this particular occasion, but slowly it is being replaced with paper plates(machine-making), not a good thing. I will try my best to restore this tradition at least in my family to make sure that we eat on "sal leaf" plates on this occasion.
So it was full of unlimited celebration. I wish you all good health and well-being and I wish no part of the world suffers from food shortage, that is an ideal wish on this occasion because it is essentially rooted in Agriculture(Paddy).
Thank you.
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