Rational and intervention:

 Debajit Bora

According to Dr. Nabin Chandra Sharmah oja pali is a ‘way of social expression’. on the other hand Dr. Maheshwar Neog define oja pali as ‘a classical performing form of Assam.’ oja pali has a long history of its own in Assam. Since a very long period of time oja pali has been serving as a media among the Assamese community. The performance of oja pali is narration of epic and purana stories through songs, dialogues and performance. The term ‘oja’ means the leader of the troupe and ‘pali’ is his assistant. Generally a group of five and six people performs oja pali in public places,namghor (Assamese prayer halls) and Maroi puja (Manasa puja)ground. Regarding oja it is said:

“Mukhe gita ,hate mudra,

pawe dhore tal.

Garunda sadrsa bhrame,

sehi oja bhal… 1

 It means an oja has to be expert in singing; dancing and acting. The performance progresses within the conversation of oja and pali. Generally Oja begins the narration and pali creates an conversation on the spot. Through the narration of epic stories they also address social issues and problems. Dr. Nabin Chandra sharmah has described it thus:

“The dialogues and conversation of oja pali nor written neither prepared before the performance. It create instantly, keeping view the class of audience, environment and then dramatized it during their performance by oja and pali. Audience can get the sense of epical subject matter through satire and humor. Contemporary issues, events and problems are being address through performance. Generally Bhaira or the Dainapali( pali stands to the right hand side of Oja) put more humor element to it. The motive behind the humor is the social expression. Hence it is said:

Oja pun PaliHala /

Tar maje Rasar Nijara//

 That means oja describes the story strait forward but pali make it indirect by putting humor element into it. Within the conversation the lyrical quality of dialogues evolves.”

 Looking at its kinds oja pali has differentiate into three forms- 1. Biyagowa oja pali 2. Sukanani oja pali 3. Ramayani oja pali. Biyagowa oja pali is very ancient form, the term Biyagowa comes from Vyas deva. This subject matter of this oja pali deals with Vyas deva creations. Sukanani oja pali has got its name from Sukabi Narayana deva. Generally sukanani oja pali deals with the Manasha story of Padma Purana, which is written by Sukabi Narayan Deva. The last one Ramayani came into the scene much later. As suggested in the name, Ramayani oja pali deals more with the Ramayana stories. This oja pali was initiated by Shankardeva in the upper Assam by taking suknani and Biyagowa’s model.

Compared from side of popularity suknani oja pali definitely comes to the front than the other forms. The Darang and Mangaldoi district of Assam is known as the hub of Sukanani oja pali. Because Manasha puja is very often organizes in this place and traditionally oja pali is uses in Manasha puja to describe Manasha myths and stories. On the other hand Ramayani oja pali was popularized by Shankardeva. He uses oja pali to sent his vaishnavic elements to the common uneducated people. As Shankardeva was against the idol worshippers therefore he prepared oja pali in a newer way by putting vaishnavic element into it. Basically it is practiced in Sattras of Assam. Biyagowa oja pali which was once very popular in southern part of Pragjyotishpur ( souther part of Guwahati) later spread all over lower Assam.

As we have already discussed that Darang and Mangaldoi district which comes under ‘Darangi culture’ known as the hub of oja pali. The identity of the Darangi people reflects through this popular form. Unique interactivity, simplicity and satire are the basic elements which attract people towards it. More over within the performance audience sometimes becomes a performer. Thus it breaks the ‘fourth wall’ concept of performance. The traditional learning process and practice oja pali traditionally also create an identity for the community. All people without class, caste and community able to participate in it and hence it has got a popular platform. Our study of oja pali also deals with the identity of Darangi community and hence we will look at more on Suknani oja pali of Darangi culture.

Over the period of time, changing scenario of traditional societies and increasing media culture and other popular forms has brought challenges to traditional values of our society. In Assam Mushrooming of corporate media houses and modern popular forms like mobile theatre is threatening   against traditional forms like Oja pali. Higher exposure of non Assamese culture by these popular forms has decreasing interest towards Oja pali and other forms. On the other hand state patronizing of other traditional forms for owns political interest carries away practitioner’s attention from it. This is particularly in contrast to the State and regional level politics, for example the efforts to preserve and provide a classical status to the Sattriya. Significantly seminar papers going back to the 1956 Drama seminar and the 1958[1], Dance seminar organized under the aegis of the SangeetNatakAkademi often gave similar weight age to Sattriya and oja pali while Ankia nat was the form eulogized and upheld as Assamese culture. After recognition of sattriya as 8^th classical dance of the country the first spark of marginalization came into the scene. Our study of oja pali also look at politics of it.

Along with the traditional values, globalization and corporatization is affecting agriculture a lot. When we see the oja pali performers of darangi community, agriculture is the only means of earning. They uses to perform oja pali after completing their farming. Moreover various gestures, body languages were also related to nature. But with the changing period of time whole interest is under threaten. Traditional way of learning oja pali is now very rare. Hence state’s patronizing f these forms becomes very important one.

Above all other issues the genre has hardly been of any interest in terms of academic research, with the exception of one research from Gauhati University and almost marks a parallel path of marginalization to the genre itself. On other hand only few writers in the past like Dr. Maheshwar Neog, Dr. Nabin Chandra Sharmah, Dr. Birendra Nath Dutta has written about it. Even after having long cultural history of oja pali. The form yet has been under realized in Academic spaces. Different writers represents different kind of history of oja pali. Likewise it is not yet been look at the storytelling aspects of oja pali, which is the most significant one. Till date no other attempt made to look at the issue of darangi identity through oja pali. Writer Nabin Chandra sharmah who has written broadly about this art form in his book ‘Paribeshya kola : Oja pali’ just discussed about its songs and other folkloric aspect of it. Similarly Dr. Maheshwar neog and Birendranath Dutta also talks about oja pali’s origin and classical elements in relation to study Indian dance tradition. Here we feel an attempt to look oja pali from performance aspect.

Often many questions arises on the nature of oja pali, what is it actually? Storytelling, acting, music and dance?  We cannot deny this debate in a research work on this performing art. According to Michael Wilson: “Storyteller always presents himself or herself and the story. The storyteller, it is claimed, never hides behind the character, but always remains visible to the audience.”. But what happened when oja performs for ex, character of Rama while performing Ramayani oja pali. Is it acting or storytelling? On the other hand keeping view to its power of songs and lyrics Nabin chandra Sharma categories it as music. But how can one deny its performers bodily performance?  For maximum people of Assam oja pali is still a just old dance. Although it is performing well towards society but nobody cares to keeping eye on its strategy of storytelling, communication, gestures and acting. Our work will be analyzing all these aspects.

Dr. Maheshwar Neog and Sunil Kothari in their writings on Sattriya have stated that sattriya has almost 500 years of history. Keeping this fact in mind we can say that then oja pali has more than long history than sattriya. Because Shankardeva has created sattriya dance and ankiya Bhaona taking elements from oja pali. Our study on oja pali has proved that whenever writers uses to say about oja pali various mythological stories centered around it. Dr. Bhrigu Mohan Goswami says in his book , what he finds the history of oja pali in ancient literature:

‘The oja pali art form at the time of Shankardeva (1449-1568) can be justified by the guru carita of Rama Carana Thakuria. He relates that Shankaradeva brought choto balorama, a dainapali (chief of the assistants of oja pali troupe) thorugh Narayana thakura ata:

Anilanta narayane bhakta anupama/

Biyasar pali tente chato baloram//

The bhakata per excellence Narayana brought,

The young baloram, he was a pali of biyahar oja pali.

Daitari thakur a well known biographer of Assam in 17^th century A.D. writes in his guru carita that Shankardeva preached his new doctrine with the help of the oja pali art form. The katha guru carita inform us that illiterate persons like Laxman oja could get by heart the entire Assamese version of the Dasama ( Book X of the Sanskrit Bhagawta-purana) and the Ekadasha Skandha ( book XI of bhagawata-purana) and they were recognized as oja. 

It is found in the cooper plate of 1738 A.D. entrusting different duties of Dharesvara Siva temple to different to different functionaries. Here we find the reference of the oja pali. The plate assigned one oja and six palis to perform their daily duties in the temple. During Ahom kingdom in Assam, king like Siva Simha patronized Oja pali. In the year 1739 A.D. he issued a cooper inscription in connection with well management of the Pingalesvara Siva temple. In this plate the king refers to oja pali.Laxmi simha ganted a cooper plate in 1774 A.D. In this he mentions one Sagara Biyah oja of kamrup.  In the same way Laxmi Simha, another Ahom king issued another copper inscription in the year 1775 A.D. and refers to one Chantai das , Biyahar Oja of Madhava temple Hazo.’

Other writers  Maheshwar neog and nabin Chandra sharmah also writes history of oja pali from different time period. But which are incomplete or less analysed yet. One of our attempt would be look at the history of oja pali and arrange it according to the time period by keeping analytical view on it.

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