Most of the
villages of Saharsa district remained water-logged for most of the year. There were hardly
any long-distance roads and the pathways could be negotiated by bullock-carts only. Kosi
floods frustrated the people and made them listless fatalists. Their songs, folk
literature etc. evolved round the dreaded mother Kosi. Their children could not be easily
married, as people in non-Kosi areas would not give their children in marriage, to parties
in the Kosi region. Mothers would sing lullaby songs to the children that if they do not
behave, Kosi mother would come and sweeps them away.
The writer has seen young children tied up to post oil the verandahs of huts by the
Kosi River as no one knew when the Kosi flood would come. Kosi has been known to change
her course quite a few times and has devastated thousands of acres of land. Kans and
Pater, peculiar kinds of thick long grasses with rapidly spreading roots would grow and
turn fertile fields into jungle patches harboring wild boar and deer.
