Dussehera Mela in Rajastan
Dussehra is a major Hindu festival celebrated annually at the end of Navaratri. The festival typically falls in the Gregorian calendar months of September and October.
In most of Northern India, Dussehra is celebrated in honor of Lord Rama. Effigies of the demons Ravana, Kumbhakarna, and Meghanada are also created and burnt on bonfires in the evening. The performance arts tradition during the Dussehra festival was inscribed by UNESCO as one of the "Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity" in 2008.
I was lucky enough to be near Deogarh, Rajasthan, when the Dussehra Mela (festival) was taking place. It's like nothing I have ever seen in my life. Thousands of people (50,000? 200,000?) come from all over Rajasthan to attend the colorful, psychedelic, overwhelming celebration. My heart started to race the second I reached the festival grounds, feeling the river of energy unleashed. Everyone, rich and poor, wearing their Sunday best, smiling and with shining eyes. Children over-excited with the anticipation of riding the Ferris wheel or one of the many other attractions.
Beggars, thieves, jugglers, and sellers come from all over the place dreaming of all the money they will make.
Families of 4, 5 or 6 with enough rupees for maybe one ride on one attraction and not for every family member filling their eyes and hearts with the wonder of it all.
Two pickpockets tried to rob me in a stampede of a few thousand people. I was pushed and shoved and grabbed in a tumultuous sequence of events, trying not to fall to the ground. I am grateful to my sixth sense that perceived something was off when I felt a hand opening the zipper on the side of my trousers. I immediately froze and pushed away anyone around me. The zipper was open and the wallet was half out of the pocket but still there, thanks to God. I look around me, all the faces up close looking elsewhere.
I grab two men who looked suspicious by the neck of their shirt and slap them. I have gone into survival mode. Neither reacts or says a word, they only lower their eyes and would run away if they could. Bingo. All I want is to get out of this crowd. A group of local kids, noticing the commotion, creates a circle around me while I put back the wallet in my pocket and check if anything else is missing. They escort me to a less crowded area. India, once again, you send angels to my rescue in the moments I need help the most.
It takes me a few seconds to recover from the shock and realize that I risked big: if the two thieves had more accomplices, this whole story could have gone differently. And an excited mob can turn bad very quickly. I was more than lucky. I was blessed.
The festival is wild, primordial, intense, absurd, holy, and profane. Thousands of hearts beating as one in a chaos of fires, artificial lights, and candies. I thank the kids for the help and dive back into the river of people.
My heart is beating fast. I almost got robbed, slapped two men (When was the last time I was in a fight? 30 years ago?), and got out untouched. I forget about it in about 10 seconds, life is unfolding in front of my eyes like nothing I have ever seen before. I gotta go back to it, jump back into the stream.
India, my beautiful India, when I think I have seen it all, you shed another layer and unveil a totally uncharted territory.
After the burning of the gigantic statues and the fireworks, a river of people is reversing towards the attractions, which look shiny and exciting. There is something ancient about all this, I feel it in my bones. It burns my soul and makes me walk with a crazy smile on my face holding tight to my camera, ready to capture any detail that makes my heart skip a beat.
I feel the primordial joy of a child in this Mela (festival). The faces, the colored lights, the colorful clothes, hundreds of kinds of music from a hundred different speakers mixing in one, loud vibration to which everyone beats. I am in the belly of one of the million Gods of this land.
In a crowd of thousands, I, a stranger in a foreign land, meet people I know: two kind men who let me sleep in their dhaba two days ago, they drove 55 km to be here, and a friend of the owner of the dhaba from where I resumed my walk, over 75 km from here.
I finally see in person a so-called "Well of Death", a carnival sideshow featuring a silo- or barrel-shaped wooden cylinder, about 10 mt in diameter and made of wooden planks, inside which motorcyclists, or the drivers of miniature automobiles travel along the vertical wall and perform stunts, held in place by centrifugal force.
I saw it many years ago in a documentary and had been looking for one since I started my walk. Now one fell in my lap when I wasn't thinking of it anymore.
The ticket is 50 rupees. 60 cents.
At the counter, a short man with smart and kind eyes holds a stack of banknotes and gives out tickets. Another man holding a 10-year-old by the hand and a woman holding a small child in her arms try to negotiate with the ticket seller. I see the man shake his head. I am 50% sure they are asking to not have the children pay and 100% sure they do have not enough money to enter. They are dressed in their best clothes, dignified but very humble, worn out, kept together with safety pins. They are the working poor.
I think they hadn’t even noticed me walking around with my camera, and I know for a fact that they’d have never asked me or anyone else for anything. I recognize dignity and pride from a mile away. I saw them growing up in my grandmother who never went one day to school and worked as an agricultural laborer paid daily or in my grandfather who worked in construction and wouldn’t be hired for the day when it rained. A rainy day meant no income.
But the thing is: I have seen the look of anticipation in the eyes of the two children. And the mother counting coins. I fold a 100 rupee note and, without a word, discreetly slip it into the father’s hands. He looks surprised, can’t articulate any word but the expression of silent gratitude is enough. I nod and walk away without a word to not embarrass him.
When the younger child understands they are entering the attraction, he explodes in a smile of pure joy. From far away, my heart rejoices. Tonight a child will go to bed happy. And an older child will go to bed feeling gratitude in his heart for the opportunity to do the right thing. How many times I have wasted the gift to choose to do the right thing.
Once they enter, I pay my 50 rupees and wait for the next show.
I will end up going twice because I can’t believe what I am seeing the first time. My mind fails to believe it.
A man riding his motorbike horizontally, defying gravity and death, catching banknotes from the hands of people who stretch their arms. It’s wild, dangerous, absurd, feels illegal, should be forbidden, looks cheap but it’s happening. I love it.
The roar of the engines, the acrid smell of burnt gasoline, the excitement of the crowd. I am electric. One of the stuntmen is the guy who sold me the ticket. He waves at me from the bottom of the pit.
This is the most fun and excitement I have had since I started this walk. In this journey, normally at 10 pm I am already asleep or getting ready for bed, exhausted from a long day on the road. Today is Dussehra and I am blessed to be right here right now, without having even minimally planned it. Luck.
At 11 pm sharp all the lights go out. The fair goes silent. A river of people silently disperses into hundreds of smaller streams. Each one bound to their destination, near or far. Tons of garbage on the ground. The sellers count their hard-earned money, some happy, some disappointed. Two pickpockets will tell the story of how they almost got the wallet of a white guy, fantasizing about how much they could have stolen. They’ll omit being slapped by the fierce Vagaboots who loves peace but hates being taken for a fool. And Vagaboots forever will wonder whether he beat up the wrong persons.
I go back to my guest house sharing a rickshaw with 10 or more other people. We squeeze in, the night feels dark now after all the artificial lights went out. It feels good. The air is cold on my face. My heart is full, still brimming with electricity, like a live wire.
All around me: India and its mystery.
