A rain festival with no rain: the Indian farmers bracing for a ‘super’ El Niño as monsoon arrives late

Raja is normally a celebration of the start of the monsoon, but in the eastern state of Odisha, the rains came so late the seeds were sown under clear skies Kasturi Gamango and Pramila Sabar cannot contain their giggles as they explain one of the big attractions of the Raja festival, which they attended a few days earlier along with 20 other farmer families in Laxmipur, in Odisha’s Ganjam district. “We do no work for three days during the festival,” they say. “Our husbands cook and clean whil...

By Words and photographs by Neelima Vallangi