Fish markets flooded with customers on the occasion of Uruka in Assam

Digital Desk: On the eve of Uruka, a major day leading up to Assam's Magh Bihu festival, the fish markets in Guwahati as well as around the state experience an unusual surge.

People have been making a beeline to fish markets since the morning of January 14 as a spectacle of celebration envelops the state, with fish markets presenting their prized and the heaviest fish to be brought by customers for the grand Uruka feast, ahead of Magh Bihu. 

This phenomenon has its origins in the customs of the harvest festival when the main event of the festivities is the preparation of a sumptuous feast. On Uruka Day, crowds of people swarm the municipal fish market, a reflection of the great demand for fresh produce and freshwater fish, which are essential to festive cuisine.

With an abundance of seafood and the freshest vegetables—two essential ingredients for the feast—the markets transform into a visual spectacle. The importance of fish in the Uruka feast is such that every businessman and woman in Assam seeks to sell their best produce for this auspicious day, be it vegetable producers, fishermen, or cattle farmers.

The significance of fish in the Uruka feast is emphasized in the culinary guide to Assam's harvest festival. The community enjoys meals like roasted fish, fish cooked with seasonal vegetables, skewered fish, and patot diya mas (fish steamed in banana leaves). These treats, together with other foods like vegetable-cooked dal, torkari or labra, and several kinds of pitha, make the Uruka feast an occasion for the community to get together over meals and commemorate the conclusion of the harvest season.

Fish plays a starring role in the feasts that celebrate this joyous occasion, which is a time when the community gathers to partake in the harvest's abundance.