A night to remember.
10 January 2025: My first trimester of travel fellowship was over; still, I chose to spend a few more days to witness the celebration that marks the annual festival of Adivasis here called Toki Parva. The entire December spend is on harvesting the rice fields, and now all the produce is packed, transported, and stored; in a sense, it is a festive marking the welcoming of another crop year. The approach of Toki Parva is well marked in the mind of a foreigner like me through various ways. The decline in the count of patients attending the OPD from the 200s to 50s (that too mainly people coming from afar) from the beginning of the harvesting season (seeking a consult at a hospital is a kind of luxury for people here, which is a sure no when they’re kept busy by work in the field). This is so about the weekly floating market that happens once a week at some villages, and this time it was humongous, filled with everything in every design, whether it be shoes, ornaments, or vivid colou...