SAMBALPUR: A sombre mood prevails in most of western Orissa with the spectre of drought looming large over Nuakhai celebrations. With just four days to go for the agrarian festival, the villagers are at a loss with ripe paddy stalks yet to make an appearance in the market. They are instead going for green paddy stalks and at many places, the Goddess will be offered only leaves of paddy plants.Usually celebrated with pomp and gaiety, customarily each household of the region offers the first grains of the harvest to the Almighty and then partakes it. The paddy is given importance as the grain of rice is considered a symbol of manifestation of life itself. It is not only the paddy stalk that the villagers have to compromise with, the skyrocketing prices of essential commodities may take a toll on the traditional delicacies served on the occasion.In rural pockets, the farmers families are giving their walls and floor a fresh line of cow dung and mud and undertaking cleaning of the houses but new clothes do not figure in their list. The barren lands even have the Jhankar (Village Priest) worried, unsure of how to arrange for paddy stalks for distribution among the people.Sambaru Gardia of Rengali said the celebration this time around will be confined to the rituals. Hoping to buy paddy stalks from the market, he admitted that people have to pay through their nose to celebrate the festival. The situation is no better in Sonepur, Balangir and drought-prone Padampur Sub Division of Bargarh districts. With little rain, paddy saplings in these areas have wilted. The fields have developed cracks and there is no work for the peasants and the landless. The gravity of the situation can be gauged from the fact that most landless labourers would migrate to distant places after Nuakhai to sustain their families back home.
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