Bhubaneswar: Raja festival, a celebration of menstruation and womanhood, is based on the belief that Mother Earth menstruates for the three days and is given a ceremonial bath on the fourth day.
Tomorrow will be Pahili Raja and today is called ‘Sajabaja’. ‘Sajabaja’ means preparations. Traditionally, a lot of things are required to do ahead of the Raja festival. Today in rural as well as urban areas, girls can be found applying ‘alata’ on their feet and getting mehendi designs done on their palms and hands from seniors and experts. As Raja festival can’t be imagined without several mouth-watering delicacies, cakes, pasties and sweets, women folks can be found busy preparing them.
For these three days, the girls are not expected to do any household chores. Women and unmarried girls try to don their best look, wear new clothes and decorate themselves. They are seen spending time on the swings, playing indoor and outdoor games.
During the festival, young unmarried girls are refrained from cutting, cooking or doing anything because that might make them tired.
They are even not allowed to walk barefoot. They are allowed to take complete rest. They enjoy the three-day-long festival to their fullest. They in new clothes look their best in these three days.
Varieties of cakes (Pitha) are prepared in the houses.
No agricultural activity like ploughing or sowing takes place as Mother Earth is expected to be going through rejuvenation during these three days.
our wait for fun unlimited is finally over! You can take a swing at one of the hundreds of swings at the Raja festival at Patrapada where fun is literally unlimited.
Yes, swings are the main fascination of Raja at Patrapada. At a time when girls in urban areas celebrate Raja in social media by posting their filtered pictures, women and unmarried girls in Patrapada enjoy the festival to the fullest with swings.
Also, they enjoy different kinds of Pithas and sports like puchi, music chair and playing cards.  Raja is not just a festival here, it’s synonymous with fun. With the passage of time, Raja is literally fading away in some parts of Odisha but Patrapada villagers have been celebrating this as a grand carnival since 2011.
In short, we can say these days we hardly see young girls celebrating the event swinging in dolis, singing melodious Raja ballads in chorus and playing puchi. However, in Patrapada, villagers not only celebrate the festival with pomp and gaiety, they invite people from adjoining villages to be part of the carnival.
Hundred plus swings are put up every year to keep the swing tradition alive.
