Professor Ralph W. Nichols: The pilgrim’s progress. Picture by Aranya Sen

Spring in Bengal is a dry, hard season. It is a difficult time for peasants. That is when, says Ralph W. Nichols, the William Rainey Harper professor emeritus of anthropology and the social sciences, they try to induce Shiva to wake up from dhyan and release his fertility powers.

Nichols, who received the Rabindra Purashkar in 2006 for his book, Fruits of Worship: Practical Religion in Bengal, was here recently with his new book, Rites of Spring, Gajan in Village Bengal. He admits gajan has parallels to spring observances in the northern hemisphere like the maypole, but the context and history are different.

Observed in shudra — particularly Mahishyas of middle caste — households, men give up everyday life and become sanyasis or ascetics, practising abstinence and having one meal (mainly fruits) a day only after sundown. Fertility is at the core of the rituals, and women undertook these in a restricted manner to become pregnant.

They chant verses asking Shiva to wake up. The ascetics go through a number of ordeals, and themselves (instead of a Brahmin priest) make offerings of food — bhog, often partially-cooked rice and vegetables — to Shiva. Charak is the culmination of rituals, when the ascetics go through the most difficult ordeals such as hook swinging. Nichols said many of their hair-raising rites were not legal in the 19th Century. These made a comeback after Independence.

Nichols, 73, had lived in a Midnapore village for 15 months while doing his PhD with the University of Chicago in 1960. His interests were agriculture, economics and politics. The villagers had short lives, they worked hard, the diet was not great and medical care was poor. “But the people turned their attention from their desperate conditions and focused attention on what they loved,” says Nichols.

The centre of gravity of the lives of farmers and fishermen was somewhere else — jatra or the rituals which were so rich and beautiful. Nichols is aware of the sea changes brought on by TV, and “maybe their taste has deteriorated.” He is working on a book on the Night of the Gods – Mahalaya to Jagaddhatri puja, with Kojagari Lakshmi puja in between.