West Bengal - Art, Culture & Heritage @ whatisindia.com

Fairs
There is a fairs held in celebration of two notified medieval personages who helped to colonize the fearful jungle of Sunderbans by their reputedly spiritual powers. One is Pir Ghazi Mubarak Shah whose seat at Ghutiari Sharif in south. 24-Parganas district is the the scene of an annual fair at the end of the Bengali year at which pilgrims irrespective of community offer worship to the Saint at his grave. The other is having his seat at Dhapadhapi in the same district is Dakshinary, elevated to the position of controlling deity of the ferocious tiger. A big fair is held in his honor on the day following the bathing day at Gangasagar.

The Pous Mela at Shantiniketan is held every year around December 22 the date on which the Adi Brahmo shrine at the seat of Tagore was dedicated in 1891. The Mela has developed at Santiniketan and Sriniketan., providing a meeting ground for tribal , rural and elite cultural elements.

Festivals
Puja
The most important of festival in West Bengal is Durga Puja, held in autumn. In the past era, it was organized and financed by the landlords and the business barons and was participated by all sections of people.

Preparations start long before the festival. The group images are built up, stage by stage out of bamboo and straw frame work and layers of clay and finally tempera and rich clothes and costume jewellery. The group consist of seven figures. The central figure is that of the ten-armed Durga, the great deliverer, standing astride a lion and piercing the chest of the ferocious half buffalo-half man demon Mahishasura with a spear, grasped in one among her ten hands, while each of her other hand holds a traditional weapon. On either side of her are seated the goddesses Lakshmi and Saraswati representing wealth and learning, respectively. The former has an owl and the latter a swan for their mounts. A little in front of them are Ganesha, God of commerce, with a mouse for his mount and Kartikeya, God of war, seated flamboyantly on a peacock. The four deities are supposed to be the children of Mother Durga. The images depict her annual visit to her parents place on earth from her heavenly abode on Mount Kailas. A semi circular panel at the back of and above the group shows in a number of sections, pictures in pat style portraying the Mother's household and the various stages of her preparations for the journey.

The puja season constitutes West Bengal's longest holidays. It is a festive season for all. It is particularly a grand time for children who are given gaily colored new dresses to wear and choice eatables, necessarily including sweetmeats, to eat. The actual puja runs through five days, starting with the ritual installation of the deity, the ceremonial worship for three days and immersion of the image in a river or a tank on the final day. Durga puja has come to be associated with a grand exhibition of cultural functions. In towns and villages, the evenings are replete with jatra, theatre, song, music, dance programmes, sports, physical and cultural competitions etc which everyone is free to attend. Community feasts are held. The immersion ceremony (vijaya), provides an impressive finale. The image is carried to the water front in a procession with music and drums and after the immersion everyone greets everyone in a fraternal embrace and visitors to every home are treated to sweetmeats. The Calcutta area, where many thousands of pujas are organized in different mohallas, offers a grand spectacle with a fair-like atmosphere in the streets and markets and brisk buying and selling of articles for utility and beauty are made. Handicrafts have a hey day. Fairs are held everywhere on the Vijaya (victory) day.

The festive season continues till Kalipuja which takes place about three weeks after. Here, the image of Kali, the Dark Goddess who destroys evil to preserve creation, is that of a blue back nude female with four hands, holding a curved scimitar in one hand and the severed head of a demon in each of two hands, the fourth hand being raised in a gesture of reassurance. She has a garland of severed heads dangling from the neck to the groin. She has stepped on the supine body of her consort Siva, the realization of which fact makes her halt in her indiscriminate orgy of destruction and makes her bite her projecting tongue in abashment. She is the Goddess of primeval power, a tantric concept at variance with that of Durga whom Bengalis worship as the Benevolent Mother. Animal sacrifices are usually made to the Goddess except in the pujas organized by public subscription.

Diwali
Diwali, the festival of light is celebrated on the night preceding Kali-Puja. Every Hindu home is illuminated with numbers of lamps and a grand display of fire works is held. The night is filled with the hiss of rockets and the boom of crackers. Unlike the tradition in upper India, Diwali in Bengal does not mark the inauguration of the commercial new year. The commercial new year is reserved for the first day of the Bengali year corresponding to the 15th day of April. The festivities on Diwali night has rich cultural content. Gambling is socially permitted. Religious discourses, recitals from arced books embellished with songs and expositions are held in temples. Diwali formally ushers in the season of winter.

Sri-Panchami
The end of winter is heralded by the festival of Sri-Panchami, i.e. the Vasant-Panchami held almost all over India on a date between the last week of January and the middle of February. The day is sacred to Saraswati, goddess of learning whose worship is celebrated with great splendour by students and artists. Girl worshipers wear cloth, dyed saffron the traditional colour of spring. In the evening, cultural functions where music and recitations of poems, dramatic performances and dances are held. A vegetarian feast with luchi (thin fried cakes of wheaten flour) is the order of the day.

Rathayathra
Some of the many festivals of Vaishnavite character have become popular and these festivals are observed by all sections of Hindus. One of these is the Rathayathra festival held on the second day after the new moon in the early rainy season. An image of Vishnu in the form of Jagannath (Lord of Universe) is placed in a wooden chariot built in the shape of a temple on wheels, which is drawn by men of all castes to an appointed place. The day is considered very auspicious, marking as it does the start of the sowing season for the monsoon crop, throughout eastern India. The festival is observed in towns and villages. A special feature of fairs held on the occasion is the brisk sales of seeds and seedlings to farmers and gardeners. The festival at Mahesh a few miles from Calcutta on the west bank of the river Hooghly, attracts lakhs of people.

Holi
The Holi festival is held on a full-moon day in early spring. This spring carnival in which men and women delight in daubing one another with colors especially red, has been associated with the Krishna legend and has some to acquire on esoteric significance with the elite, particularly with Vaishnavas who solemnly observe the day as the Birthday of Chaitanya.

Orthodox Vaishnava festivals
Orthodox Vaishnava festivals like Ras Purnima celebrated in the late autumn, Jhulan Purnima and Janmashtami celebrated in mid-monsoon, Dhulat Purnima in late winter are held at Nabadiwip and all seats of Vaishnava saints. These festivals draw a large assemblies of the devout. The programmes include ceremonial worship of Krishna-Radha, Kirtan, Sankirtan ( choral incantation of the names of Hari, Krishna, Rama, Sri Chaitanya and his immediate disciples) and communal feeding.

Festival of Sahajiya Sect
The Sahajiya sect has its biggest festival in the middle of January at Kenduli in Birbhum district. The district is the birth place of Jayadeva, the poet of Gita Govindam. Here, Sahajiyas from all parts of Bengal assemble in a week long festival, hold long sessions of highly exoteric songs and ecstatic dance and go through their characteristic forms of worship. The village and the environs are transformed into a vast fair ground, where every article of use and inexpensive finery are brought and sold and popular entertainments do brisk business. A similar mela, is held at Ghosepara, near Kalyani on the day following Holi.

The river Ganga accounts for one of the great festivals-cum-fair. On the last day of Indian month of Pous (Mid January) lakhs of assembled pilgrims have a holy dip at the Saugour island beach on the estuary of the Bhagirathi river, where a makeshift township is erected for their reception by the state authorities. The pilgrims who belong to all sections of Hindus flock by river crafts of all descriptions. Complete bazars (markets) springs up for meeting their needs. Medical including hospital facilities are made available and Hindu missionary bodies provide thousands of volunteers to look after their welfare.

Dussera
Another occasion for the worship of the Ganga is the Dussera festival in mid-summer. All along the banks of the Bhagirathi, people take ceremonial baths in the river, offer worship to mother Ganga and distribute alms to beggars, supposedly to earn a bonus of religious merit.

Siva, admitted to the Hindu pantheon as Mahadeva or god of gods accounts for the festival of Sivarathri . On a new moon night in February-March, thousands and thousands of pilgrims assemble at the principle Siva temples. The temple at Tarakeshwar in Hooghly district attracts lakhs of pilgrims and a fair with all its features spring up. Siva, in the form of Neel (Nilakantha or blue throated ) is the object of a month-long celebration of sections of the scheduled castes, particularly the section of tribals who have settled in non-tribal areas and those in 'unclean' occupations, which come to a climax on the last day of the Bengali year when ecstatic devotees of Siva throw themselves on specially prepared planks studded with sharp nails and hang suspended on a cross bar tied atop a pole by the skin of their back, which has been pierced through, by a skewer. This is the Charhak festival which invariably draws thousands of spectators to the awe-inspiring scene of incredible acts of self-mortification, a surviving remnant of degenerate Tantric practices. People of upper castes especially women, observe complete fasts on the day and offer worship to Siva. Fairs are invariably held on the occasion in towns and villages, where toys and other handiwork of artisans are put up for sale. The participants take out teams of clowns in farcical dresses, chanting rugged doggerels in criticism of current fashions and events.

Birthday of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
The celebration of the birthday of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa is another notable religious festival held every year on a day in early March at the Belur Math, headquarters of the Ramakrishna mission. The solemn observance draws not only Hindus but people of other religions and Non-Indians, and lakhs of people converge there to pay homage to the great saint. Hindu and Muslim Saints of local fame are commemorated in countless fairs and celebrations in every part of West Bengal. Every old temple has its annual day when pilgrims gather there and inevitably a fair of big or small size comes up around it.

Muslim Festivals
The principal festivals of the Muslim community are Mohurrum, Iduzzoha, Idul-fitr and the prophets birthday. The Mohurrum festival commemorates the martyrdom of the prophets grandson's, Hasan and Husain in a battle at Karbala in Arabia. The Sunni sect of Muslims carry, in a warlike procession enacting mock fights and exhibitions of prowess in which lathi and sword play form a major role. Replicas of the tombs of the slain heroes are made and later immersed in a specially designated tank. It was customary for Hindus to take part in the processions. The Shia sect also take out mourning processions with men and women dressed in black and singing marsia or specially composed elegies. Marsia sessions are also held in assemblies where Urdu elegies are sung or recited.

Idul-Fitr marks the conclusion of a month of fasts (Ramzan) and is comparable in the splendour of celebrations to the Durga Puja of the Hindus. Wearing of New clothes is a must and after the special morning prayer which are joined by every male in front of a mosque or in an open space, there is a general round of embracing. It is a day of feasting and quiet merriment, assembles for religious discourses being a main part of the days observances.

Iduzzoha (Idul-Korbab) or Bakr-Id is the other compulsory celebration of Muslims, when animal sacrifice is made. The mythological basis of the observance, older than Islam is related to Prophet Abraham of the old testament.

Rabindra Jayanti
Rabindra Jayanti (Celebration of the birthday of Rabindrnath Tagore) falling on May,7/8 is the most widely observed cultural festival in West Bengal. All cultural associations and groups in town and village celebrate this day with programmes of song, dance and drama composed by Tagore which run for days together. Meeting and seminars are held for discussion on the different aspects of his encyclopedic personality. Another cultural mela on an ambitious scale is the Banga Samsriti Sammelan held annually in Calcutta. Usually a 15-day festival it represents all the different features of Bengali performing arts, traditional and modern, rural and urban. The Sammelan has came to acquire a highly representative character.

Birthday of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose
The birthday of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, which fall on January 23 is a nationalistic festival of West Bengal. Processions with large numbers of young men and girls in uniform an in military formation parade every town and important village. The main procession in Calcutta attains a length of more than three kilometers and groups of boys and girls play martial band music. The celebrations is a token of Bengal's revolutionary temper.

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