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A Holi ritual brings sonless villagers the hope of a male heir

By Uday Mahurkar

It's the break of dawn in Borvav village tucked within the Gir forest in Gujarat's coastal district of Junagadh. Two men stand stripped to the waist before the Hanuman temple, surrounded by the men of the village who smear them with colours. As the sun rises the duo mount a pair of donkeys backwards and, followed by the crowd, proceed to the Ram temple, where they briefly dismount to pray before setting out to collect alms from the village. The village has roughly 600 houses, and the two men on the donkeys each cover 300 houses, where they are welcomed and given either wheat or money. The wheat goes into a trailer drawn by a tractor following them, the money into the men's pockets. The bizarre drama goes on all day, a festive crowd following the two men throughout. It's dark by the time all the houses have been covered. The trailer has around 60 quintal of wheat -- to be fed to the village pigeons later -- and the two tired men have around Rs 25,000 with them.

Rustic Sancho Panzas? Not really. It's not even Holi revelry. As winter fades out across northern India and spring makes its tentative appearance, the changing of the seasons heralds the festival of colours. And with it comes a yearning for love and life, for it is a time of new birth: leaves sprout on bare branches, flowers bloom and birds mate. When men despair about hearing the patter of little feet in their homes, the prattle of a son, the promise of a lineage.

For the sonless in Borvav, Holi and this unique tradition bring with them the hope of a male progeny. The annual ritual, in its 27th year now, began when a friend suggested to a father of three daughters, desperate for a son, that he vow to ride a donkey on Holi and collect feed for the village pigeons if he was blessed with a son. His wife actually gave birth to a baby boy within a year, forcing him to make good on his pledge on Holi, with the villagers following him in the now familiar routine. It did not take long to become an annual event, except that the rite became an entreaty rather than a thanksgiving. The villagers call these men "Raa", a prefix used before their names by members of the local Rajput dynasty of Junagadh in medieval times.

Till seven years ago a village committee formed to oversee the ceremony permitted only one person to go through the ritual on a given Holi; now two are allowed. Of the 34 fathers who rode the donkey in past 27 years, only two have failed to have a son. In almost all the successful cases the couples were either without a son or childless. The villagers take this as proof of God's powers. As Vinubhai Khunt, 29, says, "It's a question of faith. We believe the pigeons we feed bring about this miracle." The money collected during the ritual is used to buy grains to feed the pigeons of the village during the four monsoon months when food is hard to come by. Pigeons from surrounding areas have also started flocking to the local schoolground where the birds are fed.

Even the incredulous would be astounded by the results of this quaint practice. Vinubhai and his wife, childless after seven years of marriage, had consulted several gynaecologists before Vinubhai opted to become a Raa in 1996; within a year the couple were blessed with a son. Bharat Kumar Ghadia, who had three daughters over a decade of marriage, became a Raa in 1997 and had a son in 1999. Then there's Vashrambhai Rakholia, 58, who had nine daughters before he became a Raa in 1986; he had a son inside of a year.

Selecting a Raa for the coming Holi is done by the committee on a first-come first-served basis irrespective of caste or creed. Says Ashwin Patel, a state Information Department employee at Junagadh: "The rite has cemented social bonds between different castes in the village."

Ludicrous as the ceremony may appear, the villagers are insulted if you put it down to their superstition. As Pareshbhai Khunt, who runs a paan shop in Borvav, puts it, "When all except two Raas have had their wish fulfilled by the mannat (vow) how can it be blind faith?" He then adds, "Mat bhuliye yeh desh kabhi sone ki chidiya kaha jata tha. Par jab is desh mein se shraddha gayi to sab kuchh chala gaya (Don't forget that this country was once known as the golden bird. But when it lost its faith it lost everything)." Medical science cannot account for Borvav's phenomenon, so it probably does all come down to faith.

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