Purusottam Thakur

Sharmila Joshi

Editor

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From
10 a.m. every Wednesday, Adivasis from various villages start gathering at the
weekly haat in Amabeda village. “People of 45-50 villages come here. It’s the
main haat of this region,” says Sukay Kashyap, a Gond
Adivasi activist from Amabeda.  Since
there are no kirana (general) shops in these remote villages, they come
to this haat in
Antagarh block of (Uttar Bastar) Kanker district in
Chhattisgarh to buy essentials and other items for the week. 

Vegetable
and fish sellers from Pakhanjur
tehsil and traders from Keshkal and Dhanora 
blocks – from a 30-kilometre radius – come to Amabeda to sell their goods. The array of
vegetables at the haat includes potatoes, onions, tomatoes, brinjal,
cabbage, cauliflower and green chillies.
Many of the Adivasis  bring ragi, millet and rice, some bring mahua flowers, brooms made of bamboo, and
other forest produce. Some sell spices, oil and soap. Potters bring pottery
items, ironsmiths sell various implements required by farmers and labourers. With
traders from outside the region coming in, the haat has grown over the years –
they bring watches, plastic buckets, mugs, trinkets, hairclips and other items. They also sell battery-operated transistor radios, power chargers and torches of various sizes, which are especially necessary when people walk through the dark forest paths in the evening or at night. 

Though there are a few other similar weekly
markets in nearby villages, the
Amabeda haat
is among the oldest here – many elderly
men and women I met say they have been coming here since their
childhood.  But
the haats
of the past were barter systems – paddy would be exchanged for salt, for
example. Now, money earned as daily wages or at other jobs usually changes
hands.

“When I was a child (around eight years old) I
used to visit this market with my uncle,” says Keshav Sori, 53, who works with
a voluntary organisation based in Kanker. “My uncle Ajuram Sori was a bamboo
basket maker from Hatkara
village and we would come to the haat on a bicycle. We started our journey the day before in the
evening, stopped on the way for the night, and from  early
the next morning we would start off again. At that time, most of the marketing
was done in exchange for produce, very few people used money. My uncle too sold
his bamboo baskets for rice and other items.”

The
Amabeda haat
 is around 35 kilometres from Kanker town.
This is forested area, with poor roads and transport services – there are no buses,
usually only overloaded Bolero taxis or tempos ply here – and the region is impacted by Naxalite-state
violence. The police routinely check vehicles; they checked ours too and asked where
we were from and why we were going to the haat.

We
made it to Amabeda by the afternoon,  during
the peak shopping and trading time – from 1 to 3 p.m., after which people start
leaving to return to their villages. And we made it in time to watch a
cockfight. The murga-ladai is a popular sport and form of entertainment in tribal haats in many parts of India. I have seen it in  Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand.
For the villagers, it’s a matter of pride to own a fighter cock and win. 

At Amabeda, around 200 men (no women) gather for the big fight, some 50 of them
with roosters – the rest as audience who bet among
themselves on the fighting cocks. The bets range from Rs. 100 to even Rs. 5,000 (or so they
tell me). There
are 20-25 bouts, each of about 5-10 minutes, till one of the contestants is grievously injured or killed.
The owner of the
winner gets the vanquished or killed cock –
and has a feast at home later.  When a fight is on, the cheers and roars are akin to those in a kushti akhada, a wresting arena.

Ambling through Amabeda haat

ஆமபேடா வாரச்சந்தையில் உலா வருவோம்

आमाबेडाच्या बाजारातून रमत गमत .....

ଆମବେଡା ହାଟକୁ ଯାତ୍ରା

আমাবেদা’র হাটের পথে

अमाबेडा हाट का एक दिन

آمابیڈا ہاٹ میں چہل قدمی

Amabeda

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Ambling through Amabeda haat

Adivasis from several villages gather at the weekly market in Amabeda village, Chhattisgarh, to buy and sell forest and agricultural produce, purchase weekly rations, drink some local brew, and watch a cockfight or two

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