Bohag Bihu or Rongali Bihu celebration at home | Few important preparations during this festival...

I celebrated this Bohag Bihu in my hometown after a long time. My childhood memories of the festival are always with me like a precious treasure. For this festival, preparations start a few days before the celebration. Especially sweets made of rice flour, jaggery, black sesame seeds, and grated coconut are required to be made well in advance for storage. Apart from that jalpan like chira, akhoi and hurum are also being made in advance. I also prepared curd at home for Jalpan. Rice beer is also an important preparation during this festival.

On the first day (14th April) which is called goru bihu, we stayed at home and completed most of our food preparations but the next day after doing morning rituals and prayers we visited our grandmother's house. We had a lunch get-together, the food preparation was tasty, and had also included some traditional delicacies. We also had a special sag made out of 101 green leaves. These are some specialties of Bohag Bihu.

On this occasion we had multiple photo sessions, I am being included in a newly opened what's up group, and enjoyed being a part of the group.

During the evening a group of teenagers arrived at our house to perform bihu dance called "husori". We enjoyed the performance for more than half an hour then my mother offered them a horai and a token of bihu greetings - a " gamusa" (a traditional handloom cloth) and money to celebrate their Bihu.

After these celebrations, the Bohag Bihu festivities continue for the next 7 days. I am also planning to visit a Bihu Mela which will be held in the first week of May. I will try to cover that in one of my blogs.