Tradition · Bhil & Garasia ancestral fair · India
Chitra Vichitra Fair
A fair of the Garasia and Bhil at Gunbhakhari on the Sabarmati's headwaters, held the fortnight after Holi and beginning with mourning: the women go to the river at night to weep for the dead of the past year, and at dawn the fair turns to courtship, dancing and the choosing of partners. The name comes from two half-brothers of the Mahābhārata-adjacent local telling. Grief and marriage are deliberately put on consecutive mornings.
- Function
- Arts & performance
- Confidence
- Not assessed
- Location
- 24.346, 73.126
Worth knowing
The night of weeping is women only and no outsider attends it; the day that follows is the part photographers are brought to, which means the fair is known publicly by its second half.
Connections (2)
- AnalogueTarnetar Mela
Two Gujarat fairs where the business is marriage, and the division of initiative is the interesting part. At Tarnetar the young men of the Koli, Bharwad and Rabari communities carry embroidered umbrellas they have made themselves and are looked at; the women choose, and the stitching is read as evidence of the household. At Chitra Vichitra, among the Garasia and Bhil, the fair opens with the women's night of weeping for the year's dead and turns to courtship at dawn.
- In the same set asBhagoria Haat
Bhil courtship fairs on either side of the Gujarat–Madhya Pradesh line, both attached to Holi and both markets first. Bhagoria runs through the week before Holi across Jhabua and Alirajpur, selling the harvest and allowing a couple who exchange paan and gulal to leave together, with the community ratifying it after. Chitra Vichitra comes the fortnight after Holi on the Sabarmati's headwaters. The same people, the same season, and a border between them.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Chitra Vichitra Fair”. Gujarat tribal development department records; Tribal Research Institute, Gujarat.
Open Chitra Vichitra Fair in the repository →