Fairs & Festivals

There are some festivals which mark the passing of seasons, while others are cultural events or religious festivals which transcend the barriers of creed.

Nobody has counted the total number of fairs and festivals celebrated all through the country, but a rough estimate of 365 a year would not be wide off the mark!

There are religious festivals, those that mark the passing of the seasons’ and those that can be termed cultural events. Some are celebrated in isolated corners of the country, largely unnoticed elsewhere; others transcend the barriers of creed and are joyously celebrated all over the country. Some make pleasant interludes for visitors who chance upon them, while others are worth the effort of a special trip.

Diwali, the festival of lights, roughly marks the advent of winter. All over the country, millions of homes are lit by rows of tiny oil lamps. Shops at this time of the year do roaring business as even the humblest family buys new utensils and clothes. Prayers are said to invoke the blessings of Laxmi, the goddess of wealth, friends and business associates of every faith exchange gaily-wrapped boxes of sweets.

Christmas is celebrated with much fanfare, especially in the metropolitan cities where people of all faiths attend midnight church services and Christmas parties, Santa Claus visits all good children in the country!

Kolkata comes alive at Durga Puja when hundreds of images of the goddess are carried aloft through streets to be immersed, after nine days of celebrations, in the river. The religious aspect is only one facet of this celebration-the city’s best theatrical companies put up plays, shops offer special rates on everything from clothing to food, and for nine days, all of Kolkata goes on a holiday.

At the western end of the country, Gujarat too celebrates another aspect of the worship of Goddess Durga. The most visible sign is the all women dance, the Garba, which carries on through the night. Impromptu ‘societies’ are formed in which people of all faiths join in. Backdrops range from the rural to the ultra modern; the attire of the dancers of each group is colourful bodies with swirling skirts.

Equally spectacular are the series of monastery festivals held in Ladakh and Sikkim, attended by men and women, wearing a profusion of turquoise and silver jewellery. With a backdrop of colossal silk paintings, masked dancers perform age old plays depicting the victory of good over evil. The Hemis Festival in Ladakh is perhaps the best known of these, though by no means the only one.

In the south at Sravanabelagola in Karnataka, the 57 feet Jain statue of Gomateswara is the venue for a celebration every 12 years that does justice to the size of the statue. A scaffolding is erected from the top of which priests bathe the tallest image in the country with precious ointments. Like most other Indian festivals, this too is not only attended by Jains, but by members of every other faith as well.

Id-Ul-Zuha and Id-Ul-Fitr are essentially Muslim festivals when thousands gather at mosques all over the country to offer prayers. Shrines of saints have their own followings that transcend barriers of creed. On anniversaries of such saints- Sheikh Moinuddin Chisti in Ajmer is one example- people of all faiths gather for the colourful celebration that ensue.

Each of the ten gurus of the Sikhs have birth anniversaries marked by processions to gurudwaras, the places of worship. These too are attended by all communities.

Kerala’s many temples are the venue of annual temple festivals, complete with a procession of caparisoned temple elephants. It is at these festivals that the state’s rich heritage of classical dance has always been kept alive, in colourful courtyard programmes that frequently last through the night. The state’s most popular festival is Onam, one celebration of which is the magnificent boat race at which teams of oarsmen compete against each other, lustily cheered on by spectators from all corners of the country.

Holi is the festival of spring when crowds of merrymakers spray colored powder on one another in an atmosphere of exuberance. On this day, barriers of social status are let down as prince and pauper alike enjoy a bout of revelry.

Baisakhi in Punjab is the spring festival celebrated with great gusto by folk dances; Bihu in Assam follows the same theme, it marks the passage of the season and the sowing and harvesting of the crop.

For the people of rural India, a fair must have three attributes-it should be accessible, there should be shopping to the heart’s contents, and it should provide an opportunity to meet long lost friends and relatives. This, in brief, is what rural fairs are all about, whether it is the best known-Pushkar camel fair in Rajasthan and Tarnetar fair in Gujarat, or a largely unnoticed one in the Aravalli Hills around Udaipur.

Pushkar is now internationally popular- a bed in the tented colony, that provides accommodation to thousands of tourists, has to be booked six months in advance. It has religious, social and commercial significance for the rural dwellers who attend it. A bath in Pushkar lake signifies ritual purification, the thousands of camels brought to sell here form the commercial aspect as do the dazzling rows of stalls. In the life of a village dweller who does not have much time for social visiting. Pushkar is a fine place to catch up on old acquaintances. For the camera wielding tourist, it is an unparalleled glimpse of India at its most exotic colorfully turbaned men and veiled women sporting quantities of silver jewellery.

Like Pushkar, there are dozens of other fairs. Many are primarily cattle fairs, others have religious overtones.

Delhi’s Republic Day Parade on January 26 is a spectacle of awesome grandeur as tableaux from all states of India are displayed to thousands of spectators who line the venue from Rashtrapati Bhawan to India Gate. This is followed for three days by Beating Retreat, a show of mass bands.

Some festivals are revivals of popular celebrations. Makar Sankranti in Ahmedabad is one example. Popularly known as the Kite Flying Festival, kite shops all through the city remain open through the night as frantic purchases are made. The next day, the sky is dotted with kites of all hues and sizes as kite fliers try to keep their kites aloft without getting ‘cut’ by friendly competitors.

Some festivals owe their popularity not to tradition but to ongoing endeavours to make them cultural landmarks. Two examples are the Surajkund Crafts Mela and Khajuraho Dance Festival. Eleven kilometers from Delhi against a backdrop of rural India, craftsmen at the Surajkund festival demonstrate their skills, creating handcrafted treasures which are sold directly to buyers. The Dance Festival at Khajuraho attracts some of the country’s finest classical dancers who perform against the backdrop of sculptured temples built over a thousand years ago.

Other similar festivals that are being promoted include the Spice Festival and Great Elephant March in Kerala; the Mango Festival at Saharanpur; The Sikkim Flower Festival at Gangtok; the Ganesh Festival in Pune and the Seafood Festival in Goa.