15 May,2011 10:11 AM IST | | Sowmya Rajaram
What would you do to make your wish come true? Farmers with a prayer in their heart and the faith to move mountains hang, balance and race at the Bagad Rath Yatra in Surur village every summer. Pradeep Dhivar brings back an album
The searing heat of May gives Maharashtra's farmers an excuse to slow down a little, put their feet up, and wait for the monsoon to come and turn their parched, angry fields into a sea of soothing green. Or so you would think. An age-old tradition called the Bagad Rath Yatra held in honour of Lord Bhairavnath at Baavdhan, Phule Nagar, Pande, Kawthe, and Surur villages that fall in Wai Taluk of Satara district in Maharshtra, has your state's farmers balancing a 22-foot see-saw made of bamboo, pulled along by ropes attached to bullock carts.
The lucky farmer who has had his wish fulfilled hangs from the
Bagad
The three-day long festival, a form of entertainment and wish fulfillment for farmers in the somewhat slack summer months, sees them take out a procession. They all sit on the bamboo Bagad (see saw) to balance it, even as the man whose mannat (wish) has come true is selected by a voting process, and made to hang from one end of the Bagad.
'Dancer' prepares to race its owner to glory at a bullock race
Not very celebratory though, when you consider that the bullocks dragging the Bagad run in random directions and the 'lucky' man who teeters at a height of 20 feet, sways accordingly. None of that matters to the crowds though, who later indulge in some lezim and tamasha and a bullock cart race, complete with gulal. The most interesting bit? Not a single piece of steel or metal is used to build the tall wooden pillars that are taken around the village.
Bullocks are brought to begin festivities
