COVID-19 Kills Rongali Bihu Celebrations Abroad Yet Again

Guwahati: The second wave of COVID-19 has forced Assamese people living abroad to cancel all Rongali Bihu celebrations. Rongali or Bohag Bihu is special to every Assamese as this marks the beginning of the Assamese New Year. Rongali Bihu is an integral part of every Assamese person's life as this is time for exchanging gifts and celebrations. Read more

The Assamese diaspora living abroad celebrate Rongali Bihu with a lot of pride. Celebrations held earlier has seen the participation of people belonging to other communities like Americans, British, Africans, and people from other Asian countries.

The Assam Association Singapore (founded in 2014) is planning to organise a virtual Bihu. Speaking to sentinelassam.com, the organisers said that they had celebrated Bhogali Bihu in January this year in the same manner.

It is not just the celebrations in the US, the UK, or Singapore, Dubai, and Malaysia that have been hit. Celebrations were cancelled in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Kolkata as well. Read more

Reem Pathak, the Coordination Secretary of the Assam Association Delhi, said, "We've already organised a meeting to plan Rongali Bihu this year. It was a successful meeting. We had planned everything accordingly with limited people but due to COVID cases, we are saddened to say that we are unable to celebrate Bihu this year. We had to cancel our celebration plans second time in a row. Feels very sad. I have been living in Delhi since 1992. It is only last year and this year that we are not celebrating Rongali Bihu. Definitely sad but we cannot help it". 

She also spoke about how the young performers had prepared to perform Bihu dance and song but now everything had to be shelved.

The Assamese people of Delhi and Gurgaon had made grand plans to celebrate Rongali Bihu on two days – the Delhi celebrations were planned for April 18 and the celebrations in Gurgaon were to be held on April 17.