Choranchem Fest/ Chorotsav/ Chor
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As in 2023
Marcus Mergulhao, March 13, 2023: The Times of India
Babuso Sadyo Gawas has been pacing outside his newly-constructed house at Shiroli’s Paltadacho ward for a while, eagerly awaiting the arrival of ‘thieves’.
There’s quite a buzz about the presence of thieves in this village on Goa’s border with Maharashtra, and Babuso, possibly in his sixties,
has been told that the group of four or five known to steal papayas, mangoes, coconuts and so metimes even poultry, are only a few houses away.
“It won’t be long before they show up,” says Babuso, and has by now ensured that all his family members are alert to the arrival of the thieves. When they do appear, Babuso, instead of shooing them away, worships them and offers delicacies. Others have handed over small bits of coconut and even bottles of soft drinks.
“This is a unique tradition called Chor where young boys, all below the age of 15, dress up as thieves and go door-to-door, stealing a few things like fruits, coconuts and other stuff,” say s Ashok Gauns, president of the Sateri Kelbai temple committee. “During my younger days, I also enacted the role of a chor. We had 10-12 youngsters as chors, but that number has n ow come down. ” This year, five chors – young boys whose faces are painted to make them look like adults – visited each of the 140-odd houses in the village. Only men are allowed to worship the thieves; if there’s a house without an adult male member, the neighbour completes the worship.
“In the past, a group of thieves came to the village and managed to steal a lot of stuff, but they were eventually caught and paraded in the village as punishment. Chorotsav is the enactment of that incident and a reminder to not commit a breach of trust,” says temple priest Krishna Gawas, explaining the history behind the tradition.
Chor, part of the Shigmo festivities in the state, is not restricted to Shiroli alone. Many villages in the talukas of Sattari, Dharbandora and Bicholim have the tradition of honouring thieves, though the rituals differ.
In neighbouring Honda, for example, a large group of children go from house to house to the beats of the dhol, symbolically stealing a few things along the way.
In Zarme and Caranzol, both villages in the remote Sattari taluka, the dates for Chorotsav are marked in red as the festival attracts plenty of visitors to witness the sight of eight men buried just in front of the temple.
Four of them have only their heads above the ground, while the other four appear to have their heads buried as the festival showcases actual scenes of punishment for a crime unknowingly com- mitted in the past.
According to a legend, a group of youth while going to Chorla Ghat were resting under the shade of a tree when the villagers of Zarme mistook them for thieves and killed all of them.
When the villagers realised what they had done, they begged for forgiveness before the deity and decided to celebrate the festival in memory of those killed, every year. Failure to hold the festival, villagers believe, will bring misfortune. Not just Hindus, even Catholics remember thieves being killed, for right or wrong reasons.
On the first Sunday of every year, residents of Maina, a small ward in Bardez’s Socorro village, make their way to Connir, atop the Serula plateau, and as thanksgiving to an incident that happened “almost 200 years ago”, participate in a ladainha (litany) in front of the cross.
“A gang of dacoits or goons used to hang around at Connir and attack people whenever they crossed,” says 85-year-old Vivian D’Souza. “The villagers were constantly being harassed and one day the y got together in big numbers and killed all 12 of them. ”
Relieved that their suffering had ended, the villagers marked the event by carving out twelve little crosses on a piece of rock where the dacoits were killed. Some years later, a cross was built at the site and over a period of time it came to be known as Bara Zannancho Khuris, or Bara Chorancho Khuris.
The village of Aldona too has a Choranchem Fest in commemoration of a robbery attempt that was averted by the parishioners who gathered in numbers to fight back a gang of robbers who had marched in to plunder the church and its treasury. When the robbers attempted to flee, stones were pelted in all directions, killing 16 of them. Four were taken as prisoners and the rest drowned i n the incident that occurred on October 29, 1895.
“The success of this brave act of the parishioners responding to the ringing of the church bells was attributed to the miraculous intervention of St Thomas, the patron saint,” the church says in a report on its history.
To remember the event, Aldona celebrates the Choranchem Fest on October 29 every year.
