Where lies my cradle and. . .
Almost unnoticed, far remote, there stands a cluster of homes ,
with peoples living therein with smiles and tears,
singing rain drops and smiling Sun, mystry-fed moonlight and delight driven dazzling day.
That is my dear village; Raisar by name.
In a little known delta of Mahanadi, the longest river of Odisha,
in the midst of green fields,
she has been there
from a time beyond the knowledge
of the oldest one of the village.
Having her own unwritten history behind and fleeting present and unseen infinite future ahead, she simply lives silently
like the serene flow of Paika--a river nearby.
Living for the sake of living.
A life eternal!
With her astounding folklores, many like me have grown to adulthood. Rarely we notice when she lulls us among the dense mango gardens(amba tota) in burning summer. And we fell asleep on the anchored bullock carts, hardly we are aware when she fills our dreams with sweet fancies flowing directly from her tender heart........
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Here is an attempt to pen down some lores living on this village. These have been possessed this person since childhood.
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Folk lore 1:
Eka bismruta nai ra nija katha (Biography of a lost river)
At some point of time, the village folk used to call her Rukuni. What remains as a testimony today is a grass field with clusters of sparsely spread wild bushes with remnants ashes of funeral pyres and earthen vessels that are put near the pyre on the tenth day of death(dasa handi) by their sides, few indian date (khajuri koli) trees and irregularly deep small ponds made due to earth mining by villagers (khalias) and few grand banyan trees presiding over them. Never had anyone climbed these trees, nor anyone takes them to be a usual apsect of village life. In other words, there is always a smog of mystry around these trees even among the elder ones of that village. Some mystical incidents are well known to have happened by its side like some old lady getting fainted or some light coming out of it in some dark nights. On a preceeding day of Saraswati puja in our high school adjacent to it, when some of us had to stay in the school for the whole night giving rise to a rarely exciting chance to stay together and our leader Bipin put all of us in utter astonishment when he had a daring short trip undertaken deliberately (chakkar) among those bushes and banyans. This mystry fed field where pyres are burnt(rahasya ghana danda) has its nick name Rukunikula (bank of Rukuni). Rukuni is the river that has once existed flowing by the side of this danda. Olders say long ago in a devastating flood when paika beached her embakment, she gave birth to Rukuni. The childhood and life after that is not well known to the village folk trying very hard to get modernised leaving aside everything that seem to be materially irrelevant at the first sight. Very often Rukuni attempts in vain to get live in the dreams of some sensible hearts and to speak the unknown chapters of her life and wants to be the part of the astounding village folklores.
Who knows, how many generations have ....
Folk lore 2: Pisacha (An Ogre)
Folk lore 3: Pilabele Pakistan (Pakistan in my childhood)
Folk lore 4: Chora pulisi khela (A game of thief and police )
Folk lore 5: Thakuranimula (The seat of village goddess)
Folk lore 6: Chori alu re bhoji ( Feast by stolen patato)