Just as the people of Ráŕh engaged themselves in philosophical exercises on the one hand, on the other hand, in a lighter mood, they were ever vivacious, with laughter, amusements, dance, song, wit and humour. The people of Ráŕh are sociable and prefer to remain in company and in a pleasant mood. Though burdened with poverty, they invite people for meals. They serve what they themselves eat – rice, black gram (biŕi in Ráŕhii Bengali), and curry of baŕi-posta [dumplings made of pulse, flavoured with poppy seeds] and pumpkin (“pumpkin” is d́iḿlá in Ráŕhii Bengali). They feel no inhibitions in their behaviour and actions due to their poverty. They do not feel shy to speak the correct thing in a clear way. Here is an example of the straightforwardness of the people of Ráŕh:

A judge asked a very simple, illiterate Ráŕhii farmer, “Well, you say that the land is yours; can you tell me how many embankments⁽¹⁾ there are on the land?”

The illiterate farmer could not answer that question. He sat looking up in the air. The judge said, “What in the world are you looking at?”

The farmer said, “Well, my lord, you have been sitting in judgement in this room for a long time. Now, without looking up, can you say how many beams and girders there are in the ceiling?”

The judge said, “Who tutored you to say this?” The farmer said, “No one, I spoke for myself. In my other statements I was tutored by the lawyer as to what to say. Now I spoke just the right thing, and you should give just the right judgement.”⁽²⁾

Such is the simplicity of the people of Ráŕh. So in the rural life of Ráŕh, there is no end of festivals and there is no shortage of ingredients of merry-making. Inexpensive and common adornments are ingrained in the life of Ráŕh; but they have never been allowed to stand in the way of the simple lifestyle of Ráŕh. From time immemorial, the people of Ráŕh, like other Dravidian and Mongol populations, used to chew betel leaf and exchange it with others, and make wide use of non-Aryan things such as betel-leaf, betel-nut, banana, pieces of sugar cane, etc., during festivals, wedding ceremonies and other social functions. These things are absolutely non-Aryan. Equivalent words for these things are not to be found in the Aryan Sanskrit language; they are found in non-Aryan Sanskrit only. For example, “betel-nut” has no equivalent word in Aryan Sanskrit; in non-Aryan Sanskrit it is called guvák or puuṋgiphalam. From guvák the Bengali word guyá has been derived –

Áy Rauṋga hát́e yái;
Guyá-páń kine khái.

[Hey Rauṋga, let’s go to the village market;
Let’s buy and eat betel-nut and betel-leaf.]

“Betel-leaf”: there is no equivalent word in Aryan Sanskrit. It is nágvallarii or parńa in popular Sanskrit. From this word parńa the Bengali word páń has come. In Sanskrit the word parńa has two other meanings: “mature leaf” and “yellow leaf”.

“Banana”: there is no equivalent word in Aryan Sanskrit. It is kadalii or rambhá in non-Aryan Sanskrit.

“Sugar cane”: there is no equivalent word in Aryan Sanskrit. It is ikśu or kusheriká in non-Aryan Sanskrit.

The custom among the people of Ráŕh of taking betel-leaf and betel-nut can be traced back to prehistoric days. The male-folk of Ráŕh used to carry with them a betel-leaf container and nut-cutter whenever they went out of doors.

It is known to all, and is still true today, that the women-folk of Ráŕh still enjoy freedom to a great extent. This freedom has brought a sort of comfort in the life of Ráŕh. In market-places and in paddy-fields, women and men work side by side. In ancient times, when hunting was a very widely-practised feature of life in Ráŕh, the men used to do the hunting and the women came back home with the killed birds and animals on their heads. The simple cosmetics which these women living in a free and clean manner used to resort to, after working in the paddy-fields, and coming back home with bundles of sticks on their heads, were to take a bath, applying a paste of raw turmeric over the body, and then to apply collyrium on their eyes, cakitaharińiiprekśańá [“like the long and startled eyes of a deer”]. The wide use of this collyrium would give the dark-complexioned women of Ráŕh a graceful appearance. Therefore at one time they would keep a container of collyrium inserted in their coiffures.

In other words, at that time the men of Ráŕh always had a nut-cutter with them, and the women always had a container of collyrium. Even today during a wedding ceremony in Ráŕh, in continuation of that old custom, the groom holds a nut-cutter and the bride has on her head a container of collyrium.

It goes without saying here that the custom of wearing veils appeared in Ráŕh at the beginning of the Mughal Age.

Footnotes

(1) Low mud walls, a foot or so wide, may be used, especially in paddy fields, to demarcate boundaries or to retain water or both. –Trans.

(2) The incident probably occurred in the Jamtura court.