In Tripura: brewing langi, recalling home

“At the time of Biju [new year festival], all of us wake up early and go out to pluck flowers. We then set the flowers afloat in the river and take a dip. We visit each house in the village afterwards, meet and greet them,” says Jaya. More than half a century has gone by, but her memory of the day has not dimmed.

“We gift a handful of rice grain [as a show of good fortune], and in return each house offers us langi [rice beer]. Only a few sips in each house, but we visit so many that we are quite drunk by the end of it,” she says. Also, “on that day, the young adults of the village bathe the elders with water from the river as a show of respect.” Jaya’s face glows with recollections of the annual celebrations.

Now, across an international border and hundreds of kilometres from that home, what has survived is langi – it’s the thread that binds many refugees to the rituals and customs of their Chakma community. “It is integral to our culture,” says Jaya who grew up in Rangamati in Bangladesh. Other tribes in this region also use langi in rituals and offerings.

“I learnt to make this [langi] by watching my parents. After I got married, my husband Suren and I started doing it together,” she adds. The couple knows how to make three other kinds of beer – langi, mod and jogora. 

The preparations for jogora, also made from rice, begin on the first day of Chaitra (the last month of the year in the Bengali calendar). “We use biroin chal [a finer quality sticky rice grain] and ferment it in bamboo for weeks before distilling it. We no longer frequently make jogora,” says Jaya as it takes at least a month to brew and the rice has also become too expensive. “Earlier we used to grow this rice in jhum [hill cultivation], but there is not much land that it is cultivated on now.”

The couple’s home is in Tripura’s Unakoti district. The state, the second smallest in the country, is almost two thirds forest. Agriculture is the main occupation and many rely on non-timber forest produce (NTFP) for additional incomes. 

“I was just a few years old when I had to leave home. The entire community was displaced,” says Jaya. Their homes were pushed aside for a dam on the Karnaphuli river in Chittagong in erstwhile East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). “We had no food, no money. We took refuge in Arunachal Pradesh in a camp…we moved to Tripura after a few years,” adds Jaya. Later she would marry Suren, a resident of Tripura.

Langi is a popular drink and fuels a thriving market with hundreds of tribal women engaged in production and sale of the brew, an essential part of all social and religious events among these tribes. The ‘illicit’ tag however leads to harassment and humiliation of processor-traders, all women, by the law enforcing personnel.

Jaya says it takes two-three days to make one batch. “It is not an easy job. I don’t even get time to do daily household chores,” she says sitting in her shop, momentarily shielded from the scorching hot noon sun, occasionally drawing smoke through her hookah.

The ingredients used for making langi remain diverse, resulting in distinct flavours in the final product based on the community, says a 2016 issue of the Journal of Ethnic Foods. “Every community has their own recipe for langi. The one that we make is much stronger [higher alcohol content] than that of [say] the Reang community,” adds Suren. Reangs are the second largest tribal community in Tripura.

The couple start the brewing process with coarsely-ground rice grains. “For every batch, we boil 8-10 kilos of Siddho chaal [a small grain sticky rice] in a degchi [large metal cooking vessel]. It should not be overcooked,” says Jaya.

They can make two litres of langi or a little more of mod from a five-kilo bag of rice. They sell in 350 ml bottles or by glass (90 ml). At Rs.10 for a glass, langi is half the price of mod which sells for Rs. 20 a glass.

Suren points out, “prices for everything have gone up. The price for one quintal [100 kilos] of rice used to be around 1,600 rupees, 10 years ago. It has now gone up to 3,300 rupees.” Not just rice but he says prices of basic commodities have also shot up over the years.

We settle down as Jaya begins to describe in detail the process of making their prized beverage. The cooked rice is spread out (on a mat to dry), and once cooled, mooli is added and it is allowed to ferment for two-three days depending on the weather. “During hot summers, fermenting it overnight is fine. But in winter it may take a few days,” she says.

Once fermented, “we add water and give it one last boil. We then drain out the water and once cool, that’s your langi” she adds. Mod on the other hand needs to be distilled – three dishes are stacked on top of each other for the method of chain evaporation. No artificial fermenting agent or yeast is added to facilitate fermentation.

For both, they add several herbs like pathar dagar (Parmotrema perlatum), a flowering plant usually found at an elevation, aagchi leaves, flowers from a green plant named jin jin, wheat flour, garlic and green pepper. “These are all mixed to make small moolis – usually made in advance and stored,” adds Jaya.

“It has a distinct sourness without the burning effect of many of the other alcoholic beverages. In the summer it is very soothing and has a pleasant aroma,” says a happy customer who prefers to remain unnamed. All the customers PARI met were unwilling to be photographed or interact freely, possibly fearing the law.

Langi makers say that brewing this drink is becoming more and more difficult. Beverage derived from fermented rice has been banned by the Tripura Excise Act of 1987.

“How can one survive here? There is no industry or opportunity...what is one supposed to do? Just look around and see how people are surviving here.”

Brewing larger quantities of the drink are simply not possible. Jaya says she can only brew 8-10 kilos of rice each time as she has just five pots, and then access to water is limited and worsens during the summer. Further, “we use only firewood for making it and it takes a lot of wood – each month we spend 5,000 rupees,” she adds. The steep hike in prices of gas cylinders has made that a non-option.

“We opened the [langi] shop nearly 10 years ago. Education of our children would not have been possible otherwise,” says Jaya. “We also had a hotel, but many customers would eat there and not clear their dues, so we had to close it.”

Another brewer Lata (name changed) says everyone around are Buddhists and “we use langi the most during Puja [festival] and new year’s. Some of the rituals require offering the brewed alcohol to the Gods.” In the last few years, Lata has stopped brewing, citing low profit margins.

Low incomes worry Jaya and Suren too, who, as they grow older, have to finance their growing health-related issues. “I have poor eyesight and I occasionally suffer from joint ache. My feet get swollen quite frequently.”

To address this and other concerns they choose to travel to hospitals in Assam as there is a long waiting time to access state healthcare in Tripura. Although the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY) scheme gives Rs. 5 lakh cover to poor families like theirs, they chose to travel to Assam as they lack confidence in the state healthcare. “The travel itself costs 5,000 rupees both ways,” points out Jaya. Medical tests also eat into their savings.

It’s time for us to leave and Jaya begins tidying up the kitchen while Suren stacks the firewood for the next morning and the next batch of langi.