Jimirigaon Beats The Clock

The Rabhas, so sure of who they were, where they came from, made me aware of my own urban rootlessness

- Raksha Kumar

A couple of months ago, I caught myself asking: “What is my identity?” A rather unusual existential question to be asking while sitting in the middle of a remote village set on the lush Assam-Meghalaya border. Especially unusual when you consider that I was enjoying a colourful and skilled theatre performance in this village.

A group of women dressed in traditional Rabha attire was spinning and whirling to a hypnotic, rhythmic beat. A village elder was singing the story of a wise bird. They were accompanied by folk instruments made of animal skin and bamboo sticks. I was munching on fresh fruits gathered from the surrounding forest.

Perhaps the loaded question had always been inside me, struggling to surface. And maybe sipping a glass of the heady, freshly brewed local liquor allowed the question to pop up in my head at just that moment.

Regardless, it got me thinking deeply about contrasting lives and identities. About how the identity of the Rabhas living in the remote village of Jimirigaon — and how do you define remote anyway — was so much in contrast with my own, a rootless, urban existence. The Rabhas seemed so much more sure of who they were, where they came from, and what they wished for from life.

The Rabhas are one of nine Schedule Tribes from the districts on the plains of Assam. The biggest concentration of their population is on the south bank of the Brahmaputra in the districts of Goalpara, Kamrup and Darrang.

Savoured living