Those desirous of worldly success prostrate everyday before the rising sun for fitness, fame, and fortune. The gentle light of the morning sun gradually transforming itself into the fierce source of heat and light has represented ultimate power down the ages. [break]
Veneration of the setting sun, however, is so uncommon that the occasion for it becomes a commemoration. It is only during Chhaith (also called Chhath in many places) festival that the fading light of the setting sun is worshipped in all its humility, austerity and dignity. Devotees thank the primal goddess for all her kindness and pray for continuation of blessings in the future. According to myths popular in the Ganga Plains, the Chhaith Devi is elder sister of the Sun God, and the younger brother would be obliged to fulfill every wish that the goddess grants to her devotees.
The tradition of Chhaith Pooja is believed to predate Vedic culture. It seems the ritual was quite ascetic in the days when Angaraj Karna of Mahabharata epic marked Chhaith in honor of his mythical progenitor. Even today, basic ingredients of the ceremony are quite simple. Baskets woven from bamboo and earthen pots are containers for offerings made from rice and wheat flour, unprocessed sugar and cooking oil.
Sugarcane and ginger are other products of the season offered to the deity that has made their cultivation possible. Devotees gather at water bodies to offer their gratitude to the quivering autumnal sun as it disappears into the night. The next morning, rituals are complete once the morning sun too has been worshiped with the offerings of the previous evening.
Almost all ingredients of Chhaith offerings have been around in the Ganga Plains for a long time. Rice, wheat, sugarcane, ginger, bamboo and earthen pots have a long history. Banana, however, is relatively a new comer and yet it is an integral part of Chhaith offerings. Chhaith songs in Maithili and Bhojpuri warn inquisitive parrots not to touch the fruit meant for the goddess.
It is believed that those too poor to arrange for anything else to offer can still worship Chhaith Maiya only with a hand of bananas and get equal virtue. In the central and eastern Tarai districts, bananas by truckloads are imported every year during Chhaith season from Hajipur and Mujjaffarpur in Bihar.
Wild bananas may have been first domesticated in Southeast Asia some 5000 years ago, but India is now the top producers of the fruit by far in the world. Somehow, bananas were not very common in the hills and mountains of Nepal. The Nepali proverb, which teases an ignorant with the taunt that ‘the one who had never seen a banana eats it with the peel’ points towards its late arrival. Brahmans are said to love yogurt, beaten rice and bananas. Till the early seventies, there were few places in Kathmandu that sold fragrant Malbhog Kera of highbred variety.
Despite its widespread popularity, domestic production of bananas has not kept pace with rising demand in the country. That’s somehow strange, because it does not take too much effort to grow bananas—the tall ‘grass’ thrives almost anywhere with sufficient water and moderate soil conditions. Nepal remained almost a fruitless kingdom for centuries and is on the verge of becoming a banana republic dependent on imported supplies.
In the political lexicon, banana republic is a pejorative term. It usually refers to a small and politically unstable country whose economy is dominated by foreign companies and depends upon export of a single product such as bananas. Originally used for Latin American countries such as Guatemala and Honduras where plantation owners changed government to serve their interests, the term now applies to any land ruled by a small, self-selected, wealthy, and corrupt politico-economic elite. Similarities with the ground realities of a certain South Asian country are too pronounced to need naming.
Perhaps banana republics are also beset with chronically instable societies where there are no cultural innovators to moderate perpetual squabbles between contesting community leaders. Cultivation of rice, wheat or potatoes need close cooperation between groups of people with diverse skills—ploughman, planters and children who occasionally participate in weeding are all partners of a good harvest of all grains.
Nepal imports most of its bananas from Bihar-Uttar Pradesh, an area where the tradition of Chhaith probably began thousands of years ago. If only it could keep off the politics of banana republic practiced in these two provinces of North India, may be someday Nepal would be exporting bananas too, along with many other agricultural products. Chhaith
Maiya is kind, may she bless all Nepalis with the strength to overcome current miseries and transform the country from a banana republic to the republic of nutritious and fragrant Malbhog Keras growing everywhere in abundance.
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