Odisha preserves its social customs, tradition and culture

Heritage in Odisha has always been preserved, through art, culture, customs and traditions.

While art and culture are being propagated for tourism, customs and traditions are unique unto communities and ethnic groups that are usually handed down through generations.

Attending a sacred thread ceremony at the Nizgarh Palace, Nilgiri Odisha provided a close look into an important Hindu ritual. A lot of culture and customs are preserved by the royal clans by providing tourism hospitality at the palace heritage hotels and celebrating social traditions.

Tourism is an important element of the state. The famed golden triangle of Delhi, Agra and Jaipur finds a reflection in golden triangle of Bhubaneswar (city of 1,000 temples), Puri, (for the revered Jagannath Temple) and Konark (for the Sun Temple and Konark Dance Festival).

In recent years, Odisha has highlighted its culture by bringing into focus various fests.

The beach festivals of Chandipur in Puri showcase handloom, cultural programmes and food festivals. The ban (Forest) festivals focus on forestry while Dhauli festival, Kalinga Mahautsav and Rajarani dance festivals focus on dance.

Of particular interest is the annual display of thrilling dances and music at the foothills of the famous Peace Pagoda at Dhauli where Emperor Kalinga fought his last battle before adopting Buddhism.

The thread ceremony, a Vedic ritual, initiates the young boy into his adulthood and into the world of spiritualism.

Some scriptures refer to this as being 'twice born' and the sacred thread signifies 'brahmacharya' vows that a boy takes to be practiced for life. One of the fundamentals of the ceremony is the choice that the boy has to make - to either accept the material world or lead a life of a 'sanyasi'. This is why it is referred to as second birth into the adult world.

Set in the backdrop of Swarna chudda (golden tip) mountain and among famous rock architecture temples of Odisha, Nizgarh Palace is a poignant setting for the ceremony. Royal families from 24 former princely states of Odisha, (these states were merged into the Indian Union after Independence) and royal families from Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan gathered to witness the ceremony. Women in ghunghat, with priceless family heirlooms and men in sherwanis - wearing the pride and attitude of their past glories lent grandeur to the event. The ceremony was documented by a research scholar from Aarhus University, Germany and INTACH (Indian National Trust for Art & Cultural Heritage).

Big weddings and ceremonies are back. Days of limited spending during social customs are over. This ritual is a curtain raiser to a marriage and thus, unless the boy has a thread ceremony, he cannot get married. As a social custom, the thread ceremony is the only function that the boy's family hosts, since traditionally bride's family bears all the spending during the wedding.

In some communities, this period of initiation is done for girls too, by piercing of their ears. In recent times, thread ceremony was merging with the actual wedding and for sake of convenience, was often a part of the wedding festivities.

Social traditions that are preserved and carried forward through generations determine the unwritten beliefs of the land. Whether art, culture or social customs, richness and uniqueness of communities are brought out by such customs, therefore they should be preserved for future generations.

The writer is  an entrepreneur and educationist. She can be reached at shroffmp@gmail.com