Nagpur
Odia Samaj celebrates Kartik Purnima and Boita Bandana Utsav on Wednesday with great devotion and enthusiasm. This historic festival commemorates the glorious maritime tradition of the ancient Kalinga (modern-day Odisha) traders, who sailed to the islands of Southeast Asia — Bali, Java and Sumatra. They not only traded goods but also exchanged ideas, beliefs and culture on a large scale. Those ancient cultural ties are remembered and honoured through this festival.
Odia Samaj, Nagpur celebrated the grand festival of 'Bali (present-day Indonesia) Yatra' this year too. Since this festival is always observed on the day of Kartik Purnima, it is also known as the Kartik Purnima Festival. Members of the community performed holy bath and worship at 5 am, remembered their ancestors, made small boats (Boita/Boit), and floated them in nearby rivers and ponds. They also visited various temples for divine blessings.
In the evening, under the guidance of president Bhabani Mishra and general secretary Ganesh Das, a blood donation camp and bhajan sandhya were organised at the community hall. Artists from 'Sur Sangeet Sarita' and the community — Anand Sur, Sanhita Chakraborty, Abhijit Banerjee, Purnima Banerjee, Sanjay Karmarkar, Ashutosh Panigrahi, Ruby Das, Chittaranjan Behera and Damayanti Behera — presented melodious devotional songs. The stage was conducted by Chinmay Patra.
Debashish Mohanty, Banke Bihari Panda, Prabhat Barik, Akshay Nayak, Rajendra Panda, Arttabandhu Behera and Anurag Panda made special contributions for the success of the event and for making arrangements for mahaprasad which was distributed after the programme.