Nouka Baich Boat Race:
With the south-west monsoon gradually setting in, nouka baich boat races will soon begin in several rural pockets of West Bengal.
- Nouka Baich Boat Race is a traditional boat race of West Bengal.
- The races occur in the month of September across riverine Bengal, when the river waters are swollen during the last weeks of the monsoons.\
- They continue till September, sometimes till October, even November in some places.
- These boat races were previously dominated by male but in the recent years one can see participation of women too.
- These boat races in southern West Bengal are particularly linked with the worship of the Hindu deity Manasa, the goddess of snakes.
- The worship of Manasa is the worship of snakes.
- And the local deity most commonly worshipped in rural south Bengal is Manasa, a deity worshipped by agrarian communities.
