365bet娱乐

[Full title: Cinematic Narrative through the Social Folk Customs (2) Folk beliefs]

Apart from the rites of passage, other rituals and folk beliefs pertaining to religion and society have also found place in Dr. Saikia鈥檚 films. Different characters in films such as Anirban and Kolahol are seen offering two fingers to a little kid to see if the kid holds on to a finger to which a wish has been designated.

In Sandhyarag we see a lady fortune teller who is visited by Moti, the driver, along with his wife. The childless couple is advised by the lady to collect water from seven different wells and bathe in the water mix. Thereafter Moti is seen collecting the same in bottles. This portrays a belief system that relies upon acute superstitions prevailing among some people (Image 17).

After the consecutive deaths of their newborns in Anirban, the devastated father Rajani, grasping new hopes, resorts to doing different things told on belief by others. As advised by one of his colleagues, he planted a peepal sapling near a crossroad and took care of it (Image 18). Later when another child died, Rajani cut down the plant in great despair. Many months later when his wife conceived again, the couple is seen doing certain things associated with folk beliefs during pregnancy especially in rural Assam. These include putting thorned berry branches outside the house wall by the husband (Image 19) and offering powdered rice on the courtyard for the birds by the wife (Image 20).

In Agnisnan, Mohikanta is seen talking to his employee regarding his second wife鈥檚 panchamrit ceremony (a ritual observed during the fifth month of a pregnancy) to be observed at her maternal home. Mohikanta鈥檚 assistant mentions the ingredients of the panchamrit, which are -raw milk, curd, ghee, sugar and honey. The panchamrit is a common ceremony observed in Assamese families, where the pregnant lady is gifted with clothes, food or even jewellery and fed with good food, especially the mix of five sweets i.e. the panchamrit.

In Itihaas, people in a neighbourhood are seen to observe religious rituals like community prayer or sankirtan to keep themselves safe from cholera (Image 21). A society that sustains itself with folk belief is portrayed by scenes in which a little girl inserts small bamboo sticks into an unripe gourd and makes an elephant figure (Images 22 & 23). When gourds are being attacked by any kind of fungus, people believe that placing such a gourd-elephant in a crossroad would solve the problem. Abartan, on the other hand, depicts scenes of customary puja rituals being performed to mark a good beginning of the rehearsals and a safe journey of the theatre group for the year ahead (Image 24).