JORABAT, Sept 27 - Believe it or not. At a time when people of most parts of Assam suffer due to the devastation caused by the annual waves of floods, their counterparts in Mayang village in Morigaon district consider floods as a harbinger of good times.
In fact, the people of this village, which is about 50 kilometres from the Guwahati city, wait so anxiously for the floods to arrive that they do not even sow seeds in their paddy fields before the advent of floods.
When more than 22 districts of Assam and 17 lakh people face Nature�s fury, there is this village where the inhabitants celebrate floods as a festival. As soon as floodwaters enter their village, the villagers, old and young, come out with all types of fishing nets � togi jaal, dheki jaal, fasi jaal, and khoda jaal � and start repairing their boats for fishing in the floodwaters day and night.
A village elder, Tapan Sarkar, told The Assam Tribune, �We anxiously wait for the flood to come to the village and as soon as it arrives, my friends and I repair the boats and start fishing. We sell the fish in the market or on the roadsides.�
A village youth, Ratifur Rahman, also told this correspondent, �We celebrate the flood as a festival every year and call all our relatives staying in different parts of the State to join us. We sell the fish every day, and the flood thus becomes a prime source of income for us�. When the floodwaters do not come to the village, it makes the inhabitants very upset, he added.
�To avoid casualities, we remain alert during the time of flood. Because of this, death due to accidents is rare in the village,� he said.
