Historical Sonepur cattle fair on way to becoming history...

Sonepur  (Bihar): Away from the din and bustle of city life, rural women can be seen cooking food on hearths using cow dung cakes and dry wood under trees, some others dry their clothes in the open field after a taking dip in the nearby river, while some others can be seen just chatting and listening to popular Bhojpuri numbers on their mobile phones –- that's what the forlorn “Hathi Bazaar” (elephant market) at the famous Sonepur cattle fair looks like this time round.

The ever-moving wheel of time has crushed past many traditions and conventions, burying those under the debris of modernisation and aspirations of new-age generations. And like many other traditional events and fests, “Sonepur Pashu Mela” or the cattle fair of Bihar also going the way to enter the pages of history.

Spread over sprawling 500 acres along the confluence of the Ganga and Gandak rivers, the Sonepur fair has been known as Asia's largest cattle fair. But this year, the fair doesn't have a single elephant to boast of -- for the first time in the last few decades, much to the disappointment of both locals as well as visiting foreigners.

Until recent past, Hathi Bazaar was one of the main attractions where people would flock –- not necessarily to make buys but mostly for watching the affable, meek mammoth creature. But no more.

Some like Ramchander Singh, who has been visiting this fair since early 80s, feels tempted to believe that this complete absence of elephants is just the beginning of the end of a centuries-old annual commercial get-together. “It’s a big turnoff for the visitors,” said Singh, with anguish and pain over the lacklustre fair and its vanishing charm.

Taking advantage of the empty Hathi Bazaar, surrounded with green cover facing the confluence of rivers, hundreds of city-dwellers have turned the locale into a picnic spot, enjoying the December chill and the fresh air rising from the rivers.

Last year, 13 elephants were on sale, while the number was 14 in 2015, 39 in 2014 and a decade back in 2007, close to 80. The last time visitors saw the number of elephants beyond double digits was in 2004 when 354 of them could be seen flapping their ear and raising their trunks to pluck leaves from the trees.

But after that, under the provisions of Wildlife Protection Act, the sale and purchase of elephants was restricted.

Laxman Prasad, an old man selling “jalebi” and other typical rural snacks in the fair, recalled how during his childhood, there innumerable animals could be seen, especially elephants, in the fair. "Gone are the days... It’s just a matter of time and all we’ll be left with will be its (fair’s) memories.”

A resident of Saran district and proud owner of two elephants, Rama Singh is another man upset with the “unrealistic approach” of the government towards the Sonepur cattle fair.

“There used to be a crowd of elephants and Hathi Bazaar used to attract hordes of elephant buyers and sellers from across India... Buyers from Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Kerala would walk among the tuskers and buy away the ones they liked...,” he reminisced the days gone by.

According to Dr Jyoti Kumar, a resident of neighbouring Vaishali district, who used to bring his elephants to the fair for sale, elephants had become the brand and symbol of Sonepur fair.

Like elephants, camels are also a rare sight in the fair this time. “Unlike previous years, camels are also missing from the ‘mela’...” pointed out Ram Vinod Singh, a farmer and a regular visitor to the annual fair for almost 25 years now.

Similarly, cow traders Doman Rai and Bilat Singh are also no less worried, as even the “Gai Bazaar” or the cow market at the cattle fair is on the verge of dying, with just a few dozen cows brought for sale this year. “The numbers of buffaloes and oxen have also seen a steep decline.”

"There was a time when the Gai Bazaar would be a jam-packed place, with no less than 12,000 to 15,000 cows and buffaloes fighting for their space. The small number of cattle indicates that this ‘pashu mela’ will soon become a fair without cattle. This is unfortunate...," Bilat Singh, in his 70s, who has been selling cows at the fair for decades, said philosophically.

According to him, this year the number of cows is much less than in 2016. “Over the last a few years, the number of cows has fallen in the fair due to several factors,” he said, hinting at the ban on sale-purchase of cows for slaughter, among others.

In a sarcasm-laced tone, Doman Rai said the coming generations would only read stories about the Sonepur cattle fair.

“Without elephants and camels and just few cows, the load of carrying forward this fair would lie on the shoulders of about half-a-dozen theatres -- known for vulgar dances or double-meaning Bhojpuri songs” was his ludicrous remark.

This time, as many as nine theatres have set up their pandals for shows at night. Apparently, it’s just these theatres attracting people to the fair this year.

While Doman Rai’s comments had also an exasperated expression of loss of business at the fair, the fact remains that things here have changed once and for all. Now the entire area adorns advertisements of beauty and healthcare products to tractors to various cement brands. Temporary showrooms of two- and four-wheeler have also been set up in large numbers. But the cattle and other animals are gradually becoming a rare sight at this “cattle fair”.

However, of all the animals, horses seem to have found a better luck here. Their whinnies are the only sound that a visitor can be still sure to hear.

Chandrabhusan Singh, 70, said: “Although this is called a cattle fair, only ‘Ghoda Bazaar’ (horse market) is bursting with activities. This year, there are nearly 5,000 horses on sale. Maybe, even these horses will go the elephant and camel way soon."

Explaining whatever he could make of the demand for horses here, a horse trader Satyender Yadav said: “Today horses are what elephants used to be a few decades ago. Horses are not used for transport anymore, but it is like a fashion or a status symbol to keep one.”

According to officials of the state Tourism Department and the Saran district administration, with fast changing society and economy, the fair will also have to change with time.

"It is slowly accommodating modern gadgets, vehicles, agricultural tools to rural arts and crafts. We have already set up an Artisan Village here to reconnect the fair with the masses," said an official.

Most of the nearly 600 foreign tourists from Japan, the Netherlands, Italy and Britain, who visited the fair, were in for a shock to find no elephants in the globally famous cattle fair. They even complained that if there were no elephants, why the Tourism Department or the tour operators used pictures of tuskers in their brochures.

Sonepur, about 30 km from Patna, falls in Saran district of Bihar. According to local folklore, Emperor Chandragupta Maurya (340-298 BC) brought horses and elephants here. History records that Akbar the Great to freedom fighter Babu Kunwar Singh had visited the fair to purchase elephants and horses. Even Lord Clive of East India Company had put up a camp in the fair.

But today, if they were to visit the fair again, they would be shocked to find a cattle fair without most of the cattle or animal they would visit this fair for.