Banger bia (frogs’ wedding) in a Time of Drought: Remembering a Lost Ritual by Neighbourhood Children to Call for Rain in Bangladesh
Abstract
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In the present Western or westernized world only the “scientists,” “experts,” or “professionals” are entrusted to explore the world around us, present opinion about it, or initiate and undertake actions to influence human conditions. The ones, who dwell outside these domains, are routinely ignored, excluded, or ridiculed. But in a world, influenced by faith, poetic imagination, magical realism, and an ardent desire for making a positive change, things could be different.
While growing up in a city called Rajshahi, Bangladesh, I occasionally had glimpses of the later world. Banger bia is a children’s perambulatory street-ritual remembered from that time. With adults’ approval, local children used to enact a symbolic wedding ritual for a pair of frogs to entice the rain-clouds to come and deliver rain when the anticipated monsoon failed to materialize on time, and people feared for an oncoming drought. The people of our neighborhood participated in this elaborate event with enthusiasm though it had no religious significance either for the Muslims or the Hindus – the dominant religious groups of the place.
In my presentation I wish to explore this ritual in the context of “drought” – a condition which could symbolize other state of being, e.g., a situation in which one lacks something, or has difficulty in obtaining it. In absence of any photograph of that ritual, I hope to make drawings and paintings to illustrate the event. I would also attempt to make a comparison between Banger bia and some actions of the contemporary street-activists of Toronto when they engage in similar perambulatory “rituals,” known as civic demonstrations, in the face of another kind of “drought” dealing with the same life-sustaining natural element named water. Their “drought” symbolizes the problems associated with the uses, abuses, and scarcity of water in the world. Obviously these street-activists are not “professional” politicians voted to run an office. On the contrary, they are the people, located outside the accepted realm of the “experts,” who engage themselves in game-changing actions aimed at improving human conditions, like the Banger bia activist-children of my boyhood in Bangladesh. They are energized by their faith in human spirit, directed by the hope for a positive change, and are suitably armed with a magical ritual of urban spaces called “citizens’ actions.”