Behdienkhlam Festival

Experience Behdienkhlam Festival

State : Meghalaya, in the north east of India.

Time : June / July, every year.

Venue : Jowai in Meghalaya, India.

The Behdienkhlam Festival in Meghalaya

Behdienkhlam Festival is the most celebrated religious festival among the Pnars. Behdienkhlam (chasing away the Demon of Cholera) is celebrated annually in July after the sowing period, the most important dance festival of the Jaintia tribes. This festival is also an invocation to God, seeking his blessings for a bumper harvest. The women however do not participate in the dancing, as they have an important function of offering sacrificial food to the spirits of the forefathers. The festival held at Jowai is one of the most well known and recreational festival in Meghalaya.

The Rituals in the Behdienkhlam Festival

A series of religious rites is being performed by the Daloi (chief). During the Behdienkhlam Festival, young men make a symbolic gesture of driving away of the evil spirit, plague and disease by beating of the roof of every house with bamboo poles.

The climax of the celebration is the fight for a large undressed beam by two groups of people in opposition to each other. This leads to the heavy beam get across a muddy ditch called Wah-eit-nar. A lot of horse play enters into this part of the event, when mud is smeared by the participants on each other.

The ceremony and ritual is carried out for three days and on the last day, in the afternoon people would gather in a place called Aitnar and both young and old would dance to the tunes of the pipes and drums. The dancers are highly emotional when tall-decorated structures called rots and a wooden post-called khnongs would be brought into the pool. It is desirable that there should be rain on the day of the festival. The climax of the festival is when people dressed up in their best attire would converge to a place called Mynthong to witness a game played similar to football, called dad-lawakor. The game is played with a wooden ball between the Northerners and the Southerners. The side wins the match by putting the ball on the otherside would signify that in the following year there would be a bumper harvest in that particular region. In the evening there would be a lot of funfair and merry making.

The origin of this festival is steeped in myth and folklore, but the most common is the story of five deities in the form of four stones and a river nymph. These five deities wished for human beings to live with them and requested God to send some. One night they found four sisters along with their husbands and children halting in the forest, the five deities were overjoyed in obtaining the most coveted creation (humans) of God, that they started to dance. The humans were astounded and wanted to flee but the deities pleaded with them and assured them safety and prosperity if they settled in the land. Thus the four sisters namely Ka Bon, Ka Tein, Ka Wet, and Ka Doh stayed and became the ancestress of the famous So–Kpoh clan of Jowai. However, after more clans settled in Jowai there was a bad famine and the people of Jowai consulted their diety, U Mokhai who was the spokesperson of the other dieties. U Mokhai suggested that the people should hold the Behdeinkhlam festival after the sowing season, which normally falls in the month of July, to ward away famine. The festival continues for four days where many rituals and sacrifices are performed. One of the main rituals is the making of Dein Khlam, Symbud and Knong from trees cut from the forest and left to be carried the next day. On the second day the trees are brought to the various localities accompanied with the beating of drums, dancing and playing of flutes. These trees are made to stand erect in the localities and also in front of individual houses. On the fourth day the ritual cleansing of each house is carried out by the religious leaders and young men. The trees (Khnongs) are then thrown away. Another important feature is the making of colourful rots.

On the final day, in the afternoon, rots various localities are carried to be immersed in a pool of muddy water called ‘Ait Nar’. This is followed by the laying of two symbolic Khnongs(poles) in the pool. As soon as they are laid down the young men try to stand on the log and a wild melee of muddy humanity is seen dashing around the pool. After the rites are complete the rots are thrown into the nearby river. Later a ball, made of wood, is used to play a game resembling football, and the winning team is assured of a rich harvest. Similar festivals are held in different places in Jaintia Hills.

Petunias are one of the best summer flowering annuals for massed display, and they also look good in pots and hanging baskets. The color range is huge, with varieties available in every color except orange. You can expect blooms throughout the summer and into autumn if faded flowers are removed regularly. Plants quickly grow to a height of 10-16 inches. Petunias can be used as cut flowers, but they look their best in garden displays.

The very fine seeds are hard to handle, and you'll have better luck starting them indoors. Cover with a dusting of soil and water from the bottom of the pot to avoid dislodging seeds. When seedlings are 1-2 inches tall they can be transplanted outdoors at intervals of six to eight inches in soil that has been enriched with compost or manure. Pinch out the growing tips when they reach a height of 3-4 inches to encourage bushy growth. Water regularly to establish, and thereafter wait until the soil dries out to water. Overwatering will cause foliage to yellow and the plants will eventually die. Overfertilizing will result in an abundance of foliage with few flowers. Limit supplemental feedings to one or two during the growing season. After the first flowering flush, cut the plants back to encourage a second blooming.

Why God Made Little Girls
God made the world with the towering trees
Majestic mountains and restless seas
Then paused and said, "It needs one more thing --
Someone to laugh and dance and sing
To walk in the woods and gather flowers --
To commune with nature in quiet hours;
So God made little girls
With laughing eyes and bouncing curls --
With joyful hearts and infectious smiles --
Enchanting ways and feminine wiles --
And when He completed the task He'd
begun,
He was pleased and proud of the job He'd done
For the world when seen through a little girl's eyes
Greatly resembles Paradise.
-- Author Unknown

If Tomorrow Never Comes
Sometimes late at night
I lie awake and watch her sleeping
She's lost in peaceful dreams
So I turn out the lights and lay there in the dark
And the thought crosses my mind
If I never wake in the morning
Would she ever doubt the way I feel
About her in my heart.

(Chorus)
If tomorrow never comes
Will she know how much I love her
Did I try in every way to show her every day
That she's my only one
And if my time on earth were through
And she must face the world without me
Is the love I gave her in the past
Gonna be enough to last
If tomorrow never comes.

'Cause I've lost loved ones in my life
Who never knew how much I loved them
Now I live with the regret
That my true feelings for them never were revealed
So I made a promise to myself
To say each day how much she means to me
And avoid that circumstance
Where there's no second chance to tell her how I feel.

(Chorus)
If tomorrow never comes
Will she know how much I love her
Did I try in every way to show her every day
That she's my only one
And if my time on earth were through
And she must face the world without me
Is the love I gave her in the past
Gonna be enough to last
If tomorrow never comes.

An Angel Before Me

Just now I am beginning to understand
some of the challenges you have had.
With all of the struggles that life dealt you
I rarely saw you sad.

You are my encouragement,
my strength and wisdom every day.
With guidance and love in good times and bad,
you always know what to say.

You must have had times when you needed a shoulder
or someone to talk to about life.
You must have had times when we didn't understand
and you needed someone to hold you tight.

What do you have to show for all you have done?
Do you realize the lives you have touched?
All the caring and understanding you have given in this world
and you continue to give so much.

It must be difficult to be the only one
we depend on for everything.
Do you know how proud we are of you?
I wonder where you've hidden your wings.

For you must be an angel...that would explain it...
sent down from heaven above.
To show all this world, and your children
the true meaning of Love.

The greatest compliment I could receive in this life,
and I hope someday it will be,
Is that I am as wise and caring,
full of love and understanding
as my mother was before me.

unknown

When God Created Mothers
by Erma Bombeck

When the good Lord was creating mothers He was into His sixth day of "overtime" when the angel appeared and said, "You're doing a lot of fiddling around this one."
And the Lord said, "Have you read the specs on this order? She has to be completely washable, but not plastic; Have 180 moveable parts...all replaceable; Run on black coffee and leftovers; Have a lap that disappears when she stands up; A kiss that can cure anything from a broken leg to a disappointed love affair; And six pairs of hands." The angel shook her head slowly and said, "Six pairs of hands...no way."
"It's not the hands that are causing me problems," said the Lord. "It's the three pairs of eyes that mothers have to have." "That's on the standard model?" asked the angel. The Lord nodded. "One pair that sees through closed doors when she asks, "What are you kids doing in there?" when she already knows. Another here in the back of her head that sees what she shouldn't but what she has to know, and of course the ones here in front that can look at a child when he goofs up and say, "I understand and I Love You" without so much as uttering a word."
"Lord", said the angel, touching His sleeve gently, "Come to bed. Tomorrow..." "I can't," said the Lord, "I'm so close to creating something so close to myself. Already I have one who heals herself when she is sick...can feed a family of six on one pound of hamburger... and can get a nine-year-old to stand under a shower."
The angel circled the model of a mother very slowly. "It's too soft," she sighed. "But tough!" said the Lord excitedly. "You cannot imagine what this mother can do or endure." "Can it think?" "Not only think, but it can reason and compromise," said the Creator. Finally, the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek. "There's a leak," she pronounced. "I told You. You were trying to put too much into this model." "It's not a leak," said the Lord, "it's a tear." "What's it for?" "It's for joy, sadness, disappointment, pain, loneliness and pride." "You are a genius," said the angel. The Lord looked somber. "I didn't put it there

Daddy's Hands


I remember daddy's hands folded silently in prayer
And reachin' out to hold me, when I had a nightmare
You could read quite a story in the callous' and lines
Years of work and worry had left their mark behind.

I remember daddy's hands how they held my mama tight
And patted my back for something done right
There are things that I'd forgotten that I loved about the man
But I'll always remember the love in daddy's hands

CHORUS
Daddy's hands were soft and kind when I was cryin'
Daddy's hands were hard as steel when I'd done wrong
Daddy's hands weren't always gentle
but I've come to understand
There was always love in daddy's hands.

Verse 3
I remember daddy's hands workin' 'til they bled
Sacrifised unselfishly just to keep us all fed
If I could do things over, I'd live my life again
And never take for granted the love in daddy's hands

CHORUS
Daddy's hands were soft and kind when I was cryin'
Daddy's hands were hard as steel when I'd done wrong
Daddy's hands weren't always gentle
but I've come to understand
There was always love in daddy's hands.

So tell that someone that you love
Just what you're thinking of
If tomorrow never comes.