La Gobarina? In This Village People Play With & Bathe In Gobar To Celebrate Gore Habba Festival
The annual festival of Gore Habba is celebrated every year some days after Diwali in the village of Gumatapura Tamil Nadu people play with cow dung believing it brings good health. The deity of the village is believed to value cow excrementtoo thus the villagers dump the substance in abundance behind the local temple.
You remember that sequence from Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara where all the protagonists attend the La Tomatina festival in Spain, one where everyone plays with tomatoes? Well, something similar happens in a village in south India.
But here's the catch: Instead of instead of tomatoes, revellers play with cow dung. We kid you not. La Gobarina is as legit as it gets!
Images and videos of people playing with cow dung to celebrate the Gore Habba festival are going viral.
While most of us would be yucked out just by the thought of stepping into faeces, at the annual festival of Gore Habba, celebrated every year some days after Diwali in the village of Gumatapura, Tamil Nadu, people play with cow dung believing it brings 'good health.'
Let them Festive Faeces Fly! Cow dung fight in India brings ¡®good health¡¯https://t.co/X7hPHucK6n pic.twitter.com/ImWQy4IlVy
¡ª RT (@RT_com) November 5, 2019
In the video you can see, a tiny cow dung 'pool' with locals jumping in with glee. Once in, they play with, bathe in and hold friendly fights using gobar. They believe that cow dung has healing effects.
Cow dung in rural India is used for a variety of purposes; it serves as a stove fuel and is also used to insulate houses.
And while you might not like the sight of people covering themselves in excrement, even thinking of it as unhygienic and unsanitary, people in the village believe otherwise. The locals say that not only is cow dung harmless but it actually has the power to cure several diseases.
Saundarya saboon "Gobar" specially designed for bhaktus because "Blood circulation will improve"
¡ª Desi Bhai Einstein ?? (@DesiPoliticks) November 2, 2019
Perhaps digestion could also improve if they eat Gobar & drink GauMutr
Sabko sanmati de bhagwan!
Nilachal Vedic Village by International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). pic.twitter.com/0OA9iopYTR
¡°Cow dung is very natural and has a lot of medicinal benefits. Others might say if we throw cow dung at each other we will get some infections or even some disease. But with the trust of our god Beereshwara, we are playing in the cow dung, so nothing happens to us,¡± RT quoted a villager Prabhu as saying.
He also said that the festival was about inclusivity and anyone could participate, irrespective of their caste or religion. However, for a festival that seems to promote equality it is odd that women are not allowed to participate, just watch the show.
According to RT, the tradition of Gore Habba comes from the belief ¡®that remains of a saint were placed in a pit in the village, and took the shape of a Linga (an abstract phallic representation of Shiva), which became covered by cow excrement over time. The deity of the village is believed to value cow excrement too, thus the villagers dump the substance in abundance behind the local temple.'
How many of you want to attend the Gobar festival?
