Contributor

Ratul Sharma

Bio

A contributor to Storied Assam: photographs, stories, and wiki pages credited to them across the archive.

A young man in a Bihu gamosa headband playing the pepa, a buffalo-horn pipe, in close-up, with a woman dancer in red Bihu costume posed behind him in a field

Bohag Bihu (Rongali Bihu)

The spring festival of Assam. Seven days of dance, songs, new clothes, and the gamosa. Marks the Assamese new year and the start of the sowing season.

An earthen lamp burning atop a bamboo pole, sheltered by a folded banana-leaf hood, against the night

Festival

Kati Bihu (Kongali Bihu)

The austere mid-year Bihu. Granaries empty, the new crop not yet in. Earthen lamps in the paddy fields, prayers for the standing crop.

A tall conical thatch-and-bamboo meji pyre ablaze at dawn in a harvested field, with sparks rising into a dawn sky

Festival

Magh Bihu (Bhogali Bihu)

The harvest festival. Bonfires, feasts, traditional games. The Bihu of the granary.

A round phulam japi faced in woven bamboo with a red rim, a green-and-red appliqué star, small mirrors and sequins, set against a deep maroon backdrop

Craft

The Japi

The conical hat of bamboo and tokou-palm leaf, the plain field hat of the cultivator and the gilded phulam japi of welcome and ceremony.