When the Village Sings to the Tree: The Festival of Karam | Karma Pooja

— ✍️ Dr. Vinay Bharat

Karam, or Karma Puja, is not merely a ritual but a dialogue between human life and the breathing rhythms of the forest and the soil. In Jharkhand’s villages, it arrives not as a date on a calendar but as a season when the fields are sown, the earth is moist with rain, and the air is full of expectancy. At its heart is the simple prayer of a sister for her brother’s long life, yet in its reach it is far larger: a meditation on the harmony between karma and dharma, between action and duty, between the human heart and the green earth.

The year itself begins with Sarhul, when the first leaves of the sal tree unfurl and the land prays for rain. Then comes Karam, with its promise of abundance. The girls of the village, the Karam-aiti, take vows of restraint and song. For days they eat little, sleep lightly, and tend to their java—the tender sprouts of grain kept in baskets. Morning and evening they sing to awaken these shoots, as if coaxing them into life with the warmth of their breath.

Iti-iti java, kiya-kiya java,
java jagalon moy dhan-bhaura

(So many sprouts, of so many kinds-
we awakened the rice, we awakened the pulses,
we breathed life into the seeds )

On the festival day, the village stirs with colour. The girls walk in procession to the riverbank, their baskets painted bright, filled with turmeric, seedlings, flowers, and eight kinds of grain. They return with laughter and singing, for here gathering itself is worship. The branch of the Karam tree is cut with reverence, never allowed to touch the ground, carried high as if carrying life itself. And so another song rises with it, tying memory to place, place to community.

Kahan ker dom dali, kahan ker saru bali,
Lowa-hatu ker dom  dali, Kanchi nadi ker saru bali.

(Whose basket is this, whose slender shoot?
It is the Dom ( a caste ) of Lowahatu who shaped the basket,
it is the Kanchi river that gave this tender stem)

By dusk the whole village has gathered around the planted branch. Offerings are laid before it—vermilion, cucumber, sacred threads, flattened rice, jaggery, honey, curd, forest fruits. The Pahan, the priest, leads the rite, calling upon each worshipper to voice their desire: health, children, freedom from sorrow. Then he retells the story of Karma and Dharma, the twin brothers whose tale is a parable of balance: that action without righteousness falters, and righteousness without action is hollow.

When the story ends, girls are ready to learn a lesson, how to protect and become conscious to preserve their grains, that turn once more into song.

Java na katis musa , java na katis , java na katiha go,
Bhoirasi aige jolbun musa, tentair sontay sontabun go.

(Do not cut the Jau, do not harm the sprouts.
O little enemy of the grain, the mouse, should you dare,/
you shall face the fire of Bhoirasi and the sting of the tamarind stick.
The sprout must live, the harvest must be safe)

And then the night begins. The people move to the Karam Akhara, the dancing ground. Drums and cymbals and sometimes loudspeakers too flood the darkness with sound. Men and women, old and young, sway together, steps weaving joy into rhythm, rhythm into gesture. This is not performance but lived theatre, where the body remembers its kinship with the soil.

At dawn, the branch is taken to the middle of the fields and planted there. Faith says it will guard the crops from disease. Science agrees, in its own tongue: the branch invites birds, and the birds eat the insects that threaten the harvest. Thus myth and ecology clasp hands, and what is sacred becomes also practical.

Finally, the branch is returned, carried back with the same joy as when it first arrived. Songs rise once more as it is immersed in the river. The fast is broken, the vows fulfilled, the cycle complete.

Dala le dala le phool lahre jai,
vane bansi kere bajay.
Bansi suni, bansi suni, dilo ni dhoray.

(The dala drifts, with flowers all afloat,
Through forest green, it sways like a gentle boat.

Then sounds the flute, so tender, soft, and clear,
The girl’s heart leaps, as Krishna’s call draws near.)

Karam is not merely a harvest festival, nor only a sister’s prayer. It is an enactment of life’s balance—between action and duty, between art and agriculture, between joy and responsibility. Its songs remind us that no act is too small to be sanctified by rhythm, and no season too ordinary to be folded into music. For the people of Jharkhand, Karam is not a tradition of the past but a rhythm of the present, flowing like the river itself: carrying memory, carrying faith, carrying the green promise of tomorrow.

The author Dr. Vinay Bharat is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee University, Ranchi.

The article has been drafted with inputs from Ankit Kumar Mahto a Civil Engineer and post graduate in Rural Development.