Raghubir Singh Pirta
Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla
An intuitive hypothesis is that after loss of loved one there is state of ambivalence within
the individual. A further change, in some rare ones, is the arousal of the fire of biraha or
the fire of separation, where positive transformations take place. The mental processes
inspiring the fire of biraha have context in episodes of intense social pain after loss. This
pain originates from attachment relationships within the group. Ethnographic references
to narratives on boir, a primitive warfare between the villages of Khoshia community in
the western Himalaya, imply ambivalence of love and hate. These narratives are tales
of struggle for survival between nearby villages. A vital factor in these transformations is
mastery over skills in specific domains, thus a way to transform loss into creative change