Chorok er Golpo: A Festival on the Edge, Captured Through Debodeep Deb’s Lens

By the time the last flame dies out at Silchar’s Smashan Ghat cremation ground on the last day of the Bengali month Chaitra, something ancient, raw and unrecorded breathes one more time — Chorok, a festival of extremes, faith and forgotten rituals.

When filmmaker Debodeep Deb first pointed a camera at the red-clad figures running barefoot through crowds, he wasn’t sure what he was filming — a ritual, a performance, or a vanishing way of life. His documentary Chorok er Golpo is undoubtedly the first in-depth attempt to digitally chronicle the version of Chorok practised in Barak Valley, a festival often confused with its cousin Gajon from rural Bengal, but with distinct practices, beliefs and myths.

“I had these questions as a child,” Debodeep says. “Why do people run dressed as Kali? Why do they go to the cremation ground? Why do they wear red? Why does Chorok even happen?” Despite hours of scrolling and searching online, he found next to nothing about the local version of the ritual — just a few stray clips and a heavy silence. “That’s when I felt, why not make something myself?”

Watch the documentary here:

Chorok is celebrated on the last day of the Bengali calendar year. Unlike most Hindu festivals, it isn’t bound by Brahminical rituals. There are no sacred texts. Its roots lie in folk belief, in land, fertility, harvest, healing and penance. It’s messy and mystical — and rapidly vanishing. “People want to do the puja and that needs open grounds, which are gradually vanishing from our urban areas,” he says. “Concrete jungles are closing in. It’s fading away.”

In his search for authenticity, Debodeep found a devoted group in Silchar’s Kalibari Char area. Whether or not they were the oldest, their sincerity made them ideal collaborators. Still, the process wasn’t smooth. “The first day I took the camera, they became conscious. I didn’t want to disturb their penance, so I switched to guerilla filming,” he recalls. At one point, he even abandoned the idea of a documentary, just letting the camera roll — hoping a story would emerge by the end.

That story came through conversations with sadhus. Their versions of the festival’s origin and meaning varied widely, sometimes contradicting each other, and none mirrored the Gajon narrative of Bengal. But one sadhu’s explanation stood out — measured, grounded, and mystical without being vague. To cross-check the account, Debodeep approached Amalendu Bhattacharjee, a retired Bengali professor and historian. “His version matched exactly with that one Sadhu’s. That gave my film its spine,” Debodeep shares.

Chorok er Golpo took a month to shoot and edit — around 15–16 days for filming and the rest for post-production. It’s not just a documentary but a visual ethnography of a festival on the brink. In it, the viewer sees more than men dressed as gods. There are barefoot sadhus walking the streets for a month, eating only fruits, sleeping on floors, and renouncing their daily lives in a strange act of surrender. There’s a scene at Silchar Smashan Ghat on the eve of the festival — all groups gather, cook bhog for Bhairav, and perform pujas amidst burning pyres. “Those dressed as Kali seem to lose their senses… they become someone else,” Debodeep recalls. “They merge with the divine.”

The documentary also captures piercing rituals — hooks going through skin, bodies hoisted and spun from the rotating Chorok tree, and pigeons sacrificed in the name of blessings. Blood fertilises the soil is the popular belief in this ritual. “They told me they don’t feel any pain. I used to be terrified of Chorok. But when I went, I overcame my fear.”

Yet Chorok remains limited — both in scope and caste. “I’ll get into trouble for saying this,” Debodeep admits, “but Chorok never became as big as Gajon in Bengal because it’s still limited to one caste in Silchar. Others just watch — they don’t participate.”

After showing the finished film to the community, they were so moved that they invited him for lunch. “That made it worth it,” he says with a smile. “We spend hours making reels and chasing trends, but there are real stories in our rural remote interiors in the entry country, waiting to be told. This is our history, and this is our culture”

Through Chorok er Golpo, Debodeep offers a glimpse into something that may not last another decade. But thanks to his lens, it will not vanish without a trace.

The 38-minute long documentary is available for free to watch on the YouTube channel: @filmsByDebodeep