Bhojali: Chh'garh's age-old ritualistic friendship festival

While the rest of India celebrates Friendship Day on the first Sunday of August, Chhattisgarh has its own unique way of celebrating friendship. Several communities in Chhattisgarh have been practising a ritualistic friendship festival called Bhojali for ages.

Raipur: Ages before the United Nations declared July 30 as the International Day of Friendship (although in many countries including India, it’s celebrated on the first Sunday of August) in 2011, girls in the hinterlands of Chhattisgarh have been observing an age-old ritualistic friendship festival called Bhojali.

This festival unique to parts of Chhattisgarh is celebrated on the next day of Raksha Bandhan or Rakhi festival.

The festival takes its name from wheat or barley (Bhojali or Jawara) seedlings, which are planted in a cane basket full of cow dung for nine days.

This friendship day is celebrated on the ninth day of this Bhojali Pooja which starts from the day of Nag Panchami and ends on the next day of the Raksha Bandhan.

The sown paddy crop—known as Bhojali—is first worshipped and is then immersed in a water body a day after Raksha Bandhan.

The ritual of Bhojali is rooted in the worship of Bhojali goddess-mother and culminates in oaths of friendship that last a lifetime.

Instead of a friendship band, friends here put tinsel threads of paddy behind each other’s ear as a symbol of their everlasting friendship.

The oath of friendship is just one aspect of Bhojali as people also pray for safe rains in monsoon and for the better yield.