Bihu songs: ‘They flow like rivers in our bloodstreams’

The only background score one hears, beyond an occasional bird call, is that of women sploshing across the flooded paddy fields planting green baby saplings. And then five women bursting into a Bihu song, spontaneously.

It is July, or the month of Aahar in the Assamese calendar, the first day of paddy transplantation, called Nobhui. A day of new paddy saplings, literally. The sun in Hira Saikia’s field in Salaguri Gaon in Titabor still feels harsh on the skin, the air humid, and task on hand, backbreaking. Four friends of Hira Saikia, 52, have come to help her on this first day of the season. Gunita Saikia, 50, is an ASHA worker in the village. Aruna Bora, 55 is a cook who prepares mid-day meals for school children. Bristiparna Sonowal, 35, once a member of the panchayat and Nomi Saikia, 35, a cultivator and homemaker. All the women cultivate paddy on their own little piece of land that helps sustain their families. On another day, Hira will be helping one of them.

Transplanting rice seedlings on just one bigha of land (equalling 0.33 acres in Assam) would take these five women almost five to six hours. They have been working in the field from early morning. It is noon and suddenly they are singing – a Bihu song. Gunita takes the lead and sings a few traditional Bihu naams one after the other. The rest of the women join in, an organic chorus, their synchronised claps adding the rhythm and energy to the song this afternoon.

The Bihu songs Gunita and others sing are associated with Rongali or Bohag Bihu, celebrated around April and May. The first day of the Assamese new year, it also marks the onset of a new cycle of ploughing and plantation, a spring festival. That is the Bihu associated with dance, songs, and celebration. But not quite like the modern-day distorted version of it. No urban spaces, no grand open stages, no paid professional artists, no light shows, no amplified music, no commercial sponsorships. Just a simple connection of the sun, the seasons, agricultural reproduction and labour. Just like we see on Hira’s field.

There are three Bihu festivals in Assam and each is associated with one or the other aspect of the annual cycle of agriculture. The Bohag Bihu celebrates the crop planting season. Kati Bihu, a rather subdued one is about the time of scarcity and praying for a good harvest. And Magh Bihu marks the end of the agricultural cycle culminating in a successful harvest. The songs speak of harvest, flood, love, longing, historical memoirs and more. Created by the unknown agrarian people working in the fields the Bihu songs are a genre by themselves and are sung throughout the year. They are the people’s archives of life, labour, love and longing that they have kept preserving and passing on to the next generation.

"Bihu songs are not something that we can learn,” says Gunita. “Even Biyanam (marriage songs) were never taught to us, we learnt them as we grew up. May be a classical form like Borgeet, you have to end up learning them from someone. But Bihu songs are not taught. They are part of our lives. They flow like rivers in our bloodstream.”