{"id":55139,"date":"2025-07-16T12:38:05","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T07:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=55139"},"modified":"2025-07-16T12:58:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T07:28:14","slug":"behdeinkhlam-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/behdeinkhlam-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Behdeinkhlam Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Behdeinkhlam Festival Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The sacred Behdeinkhlam Festival was celebrated with fervor in Jowai, Meghalaya, blending ancient Pnar rituals with modern social themes.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Behdeinkhlam Festival<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Meaning:<\/b> <b>Beh Dien<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> means to <\/span><b>drive away the plague<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> with sticks and prayers and Khlam means plague or pestilence.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a significant cultural festival celebrated by the <\/span><b>Pnar community in Meghalaya.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It translates to \u201cdriving away the plague\u201d or \u201cchasing away the demon of cholera\u201d;<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a festival that seeks to <\/span><b>ward off evil spirits, diseases, misfortune<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and invoke blessings for a good harvest and communal prosperity.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Timing:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It is celebrated <\/span><b>annually in July<\/b> <b>after the sowing period.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Rituals of Behdeinkhlam Festival<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The main part of the festival was the <\/span><b>making of the Dein Khlam and Khnong<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> which are rounded, polished and straight <\/span><b>tree trunks from the forest.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">During the cultural festival tour, young men make a symbolic gesture of driving away of the evil spirit, plague and disease by beating of the roof of every house with bamboo poles.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is carried out for three days and on the last day, in the afternoon people would gather in a <\/span><b>place called Aitnar<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and both young and old would dance to the tunes of the pipes and drums.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On the final day people would converge to a <\/span><b>place called Mynthong<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to witness a game played similar to <\/span><b>football, called dad-lawakor.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsonair.gov.in\/behdeinkhlam-festival-blends-ancient-rituals-modern-messages-in-meghalaya\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><b>NA<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Behdeinkhlam is a vibrant tribal festival of Meghalaya, celebrated by the Pnar community to drive away evil spirits and invoke blessings for a good harvest. Read more about Behdeinkhlam Festival, Meaning, Rituals, State, Latest News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":55163,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1571,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-55139","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-behdeinkhlam-festival","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}