At a time when Bhagabata Tungis, the community institutions of moral and religious teaching which enriches individual and social life, are struggling to keep alive their identity due to the onslaught of modernisation, the GMR Varalakashmi Foundation (GMRVF), a nonprofit CSR arm of the GMR Group, has come forward to renovate and revive these institutions in Mangalpur panchayat of Dhenkanal district.
The GMRVF has restored six Bhagabata Tungis in three periphery villages of the company’s project area and provided traditional musical instruments (Dhola, Khanjani, Jhumka, Gini, Turi) to 18 Kirtan Mandalis to use during devotional song sessions in Bhagabata Tungi and Mahima Ashrams.
“We are immensely grateful to the foundation for renovating the Bhagabata Tungis in our area. This will help us continue our daily reading of Bhagabata and conduct Bhajans in the Tungis,” said Pranabandhu Behera of Kamalanga village.
The Bhagabata Tungis are the places where villagers gather in the evening to listen to discourses from the Bhagabata. The Bhagabat, written in Odia by late Atibadi Jagannath Das, eminent poet and a great devotee of lord Jagannath, geared up a cultural revolution which influenced life of the Odia society in almost every village of the State.
Every evening a literate man used to read this sacred book aloud in the dim light of a Dipa (an earthenware then used for purpose of light by means of a cotton wick immersed in Polanga oil) and the villagers were sitting around him to listen for their enlightenment and not for entertainment.
“The tradition was sadly on the verge of being wiped out under the impact of modernisation. We have taken a small step to revive this local culture. We want to promote community brotherhood, peace and solidarity in the GKEl periphery villages,” said Programme leader, GMRVF Jayant Kumar Mohanty.
“This also sends a message to the new generation that it is not the possession of wealth, rather a person’s concern for common societal issues against personal issues which becomes a distinct characteristic of an individual,” said Satyananda Rout, a sexagenarian of Mangalpur.