Hadoti · Arid Northwest
Festivals
| Festival | When | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Kota Dussehra Mela | Ashvin (September–October), for around twenty-five days | Among the largest Dussehra fairs in India, run on the same ground in Kota since the late nineteenth century. Very tall effigies, a full commercial mela around them, and a night programme of folk and film performance that runs for weeks after the burning. |
| Chandrabhaga Fair | Kartik Purnima (November) | A cattle and horse fair on the Chandrabhaga river at Jhalarapatan, with bathing at the old temple group and all-night bhajan singing. It is a trading fair first and a pilgrimage second. |
| Sitabari Fair | Jyeshtha Amavasya (May–June) | The Sahariya community's largest gathering, at Kelwara in Baran. Marriages are arranged and solemnised here, and cattle and buffalo change hands — a fair that does the work a whole calendar of institutions does elsewhere. |
| Brahmani Mata Fair at Sorsan | Magh Shukla Saptami (January–February) | A temple fair in Baran district that is also the region's donkey market — the only fair in Hadoti at which donkeys and mules are traded in numbers, and a reminder of what actually moved goods on this plateau. |
| Dol Mela | Jaljhulni Ekadashi (August–September), for around a fortnight | Baran's town fair, opening with a procession of dozens of dev vimans — palanquin shrines carried from the town's temples to the Dol Talab tank. It draws as heavily from Madhya Pradesh as from Rajasthan. |
| Bundi Utsav | November | A town festival of processions, folk performance and craft stalls, run by the state tourism department, timed for the clear weather after the monsoon. |
| Teej and Gangaur | Sawan (July–August) and Chaitra (March–April) | The women's festivals of the Rajasthani calendar, observed here with swings, processions of the Gangaur images to the water, and the ghoomar. |
| Kartik Purnima at Kapil Dhara | November | Bathing and a fair at the Kapil Dhara springs near Baran, and along the Chambal at points where the river is approachable at all. |
The festival calendar of Hadoti — what is celebrated, when it falls and what happens. (8)