Manoj Anand
The Asian Age
April 27, 1999
Title: Assam project on revival of culture begins Author: Manoj Anand Publication: The Asian Age Date: April 27, 1999 Assam, a land nestled in myths, mysteries and legends is fast losing its old traditions and practices. In order to combat this, the Assam tourism department embarked upon an ambitious project to organise the Rongali Utsav here on Wednesday to popularise the region's old cultural heritage. Besides traditional dances and songs, the department has organised a unique demonstration of traditional sports like Dhulia Circus, Dhop Khel, Haigudu and Oily bamboo climbing to make the festival attractive. However, it was not so easy to hold these traditional sports. In fact, the state government realised that sports that were popular till the last decade in Assam are on the verge of extinction because of lack of any promotional steps. The organiser of the traditional sports for the utsav, Mr Swapnil Baruah said, "Till recently, sports like Dhulia Circus, Dhop Khel were very popular in rural Assam but this time we could not find a player of these traditional sports. Subsequently, we have identified a few persons who can play the sport." He also pointed out that these sports were still alive in some remote parts of the state. Alarmed by the trend, tourism minister Jagdish Bhuyan said "We are planning to plead for the inclusion of this festival in the tourism ministry's national calendar. We are contemplating some measures to promote such sports by organising such festivals and extending some financial benefits." The state government is attaching a lot of importance to this utsav because it is also the last Rongali festival of this rnillennium. The Rongali Utsav will be held regularly at the newly-built Srimanta Sankedev Kalakhetra here and we shall try to reflect the cultural ethos of the Northeast," he said. He further disclosed that his team faced a similar problem in organising the food festival for the Utsav as most of the Manipuris living in nearby areas expressed their inability to cook their traditional food. "We sent a team of officials to identify the villagers who can cook traditional Manipuri food which will be another attraction of the Utsav besides other ethnic foods," he said.
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