Chitra Vichitra Mela 2008

A night of mourning on the Sabarmati, and a fair the next morning.

Chitra Vichitra Mela is an important Adivasi gathering at Gunbhankhari near Khedbrahma in northern Gujarat, around the confluence of the Sabarmati, Akul and Vyakul rivers. A local tradition links its name to Chitravirya and Vichitravirya of the Mahabharata. Such associations are community folklore rather than independently verified accounts that the epic princes lived or died there.

The gathering has a distinctive emotional sequence. Around the new-moon night, Bhil, Garasia and other families remember relatives who died during the preceding year. At the waterside people express grief together, sometimes with loud lamentation and offerings. As the period of mourning ends, the fair shifts into music, colourful dress, dance, trade and community meetings. The transition honours bereavement without excluding renewal and joy.

India's Ministry of Tourism places the fair near the period after Holi. The present Fagan Amavasya sunrise rule may not represent the night of mourning and subsequent daytime celebrations accurately, so event timing needs an annual local review. The fair should be described in the voices and practices of its participating communities, not as a spectacle detached from them.

Almost nowhere else does a calendar put a public mourning and a fair on the same ground twelve hours apart. Both halves are the observance, and going for only the second is missing it.

Ancestor remembrance and mourning near Amavasya followed by folk dances, trade and community gatherings.

Gunbhankhari near Khedbrahma, northern Gujarat; Bhil and Garasia traditions at river confluence.