BALANGIR: Festivals like Nuakhai are occasions when rural economy gets a boost. For the last few days, the market in Balangir town wore a look of a huge rural haat with hundreds of rural men and women rushing to the town to sell essential items, that otherwise are difficult to find.
Come Nuakhai, residents of Bijakhaman Colony Pada, a hamlet near Balangir town, get ready with their leaf bowls. While these small-time bowl-makers earn a sizeable amount by selling their products, the urbanites are conveniently getting the essential leaf bowls for the feast.
A bowl-maker Surya Khadia said that her family earns around Rs 3,000 in the season. Surya and her daughter can make around 500 bowls a day. “In Nuakhai, demand for bowls is high. Customers also demand plain leaf to be used in the rituals,” she said. Surya said that while her husband takes care of marketing, women folk of the house make bowls.
With many rituals attached to Nuakhai, items like new crop, kure leaf (a special leaf which is used to partake of prasad), pots, bowls and many other items are in great demand.
While, earlier, denizens of the town visited the villagers to fetch these items, villagers are now thronging the urban market for better business.
Manas Mohanty, a resident of Rugudi Pada here, said that because of the rural market they are easily getting all the items required for Nuakhai celebration.
“The rural market during Nuakhai, adjacent to the daily market, is like a facility being provided at the doorstep,” he said.
Not only from Bijakhaman, small time businessmen from villages of Lakhapali and Bagdur who also produce these items, camp in the town for five days before Nuakhai to sell the items.
Asha Khadia, a businessman of Lakhapali, said customers are bound to buy the items since they observe the rituals. “For other functions, people have choice. For weddings or other functions people may go for machine-made pressed bowls, but for Nuakhai nobody violates this,” said Khadia.
