Festival, fair and circus – Indian style

I had the good fortune to find myself in, the lovely home of Johnnie of the jungle, in a beautiful, quiet nature park. However, once a year, much to the delight of the local population, there is a festival that takes place for five days and during that time this sleepy little corner of the jungle is transformed and overrun. A whole compound springs up with makeshift tents in the days preceding the grand opening as the stalls and rides are set up. Unfortunately no ‘facilities’ are provided so the additional hoards of people use the stream at the end of the drive to wash – themselves, their clothes, their pots and pans – and use the driveway itself to relieve themselves creating a rather pungent aroma on the journey back to the house.

Once the festival was underway, the numbers swelled to thousands over the five days. It was quite odd to be in this usually tranquil and remote place surrounded by nature (deer would wander through the garden as we had breakfast) and suddenly have the sounds of a relatively small, but very enthusiastic festival cutting into the peace until late into the night. Drums, tinny, garbled announcements over the tannoy coaxing people in to the ‘circus’ show and most incongruous, the sounds of engines whizzing around in the car circus.



People come from all over the state for this event. Families dressed up in their best colourful clothes wandering around buying sweet treats or shiny, plastic toys for eager kids. There were fairground rides ranging from small cars on a mini merry-go-round to swinging ships and waltzers. Stalls lined the walk offering delicious snacks – big mountains of lentils with a crater full of dal, parottas made fresh on a big flat griddle, dry snacks and brightly coloured mountains of Indian sweets. Men cross-legged on blankets offering tattoos, a selection of stamps with patterns that they traced to choose from. Very tempting! Or even more exciting and possibly less hazardous, you could have your fortune told by a parrot, a guinea pig or even a mechanical robot.

This was all enjoyable and frivolous fun, but the origin of this celebration, as with all festivals in India was religious. The small temple was adorned with fairy lights and full of people lined up waiting to do their pujas, holding on to the sweets and garlands they had bought from the sellers as their offerings. There was a procession of people with enormous flower arrangements on their heads, some of them seemingly in a trance-like state – I think this was in celebration of spring, the flowers now in season being praised and the gods thanked. There were also other small ‘temples’ where little alters were set up in tents. I didn’t investigate if that was for overflow or if they served a different purpose. The assault on the senses was enough that just wandering around was plenty to take in.



Of course, being almost the only Westerners anywhere to be seen, we were as much of a spectacle to the people attending, as the festivities were to us. Staring upturned faces followed us as we strolled through; children chirping ‘one photo’ and squealing with delight when shown their image and sellers with necklaces dangling from their arms or sticks with flutes fanned out like flowers, trailed after us, as though if they asked enough times we might change our minds about purchasing something.

In the evening things get a little more raucous – blinking lights adorned everything possible and drunken groups of young boys staggered around, jovially demanding to have their pictures taken. But by far, the most extraordinary thing for me was the ‘Maruti Car Circus’. I had heard the noise of engines revving and knew that there were motorbikes and cars at this show, but I hadn’t quite got my head round what I was about to see as I climbed up the rickety stairs surrounding this gap-ridden, barrel-shaped structure made up of uneven planks of wood. There was a viewing platform that went around the rim and below two Maruti cars and four motorbikes were parked. Before long, once there was sufficient crowd peering over the railings, a few people (including one women) casually sauntered out and started to rev engines. Even though it was very clear what was about to happen next, somehow once they all started whizzing around stuck to the side of the structure, it was still gobsmacking. One guy in particular was clearly the star of the show. His motorbike was hurtling around a few feet from the top edge (this is sideways) and he was sitting side-saddle waving his arms around (i.e. not holding on to anything, let alone the handlebars). Then the cars started up and soon there were six vehicles in this space going around in circles at a 90 degree angle. The whole structure shook as they flashed by. So quick and round again almost immediately. It was exhilarating just standing there. You could hold out a Rs100 rupee note and within seconds it was gone as they would grab the cash as they whizzed by. At one point, our star player lined up with one of the cars and practically lay down on the bonnet while still half sitting on his bike as they circumnavigated the arena– still no hands! And of course, no helmets to be seen anywhere. My photos don’t do it justice but I did get some video footage and will upload it if I can find the bandwidth some place soon. When we climbed back down the creaky metal stairs, still marvelling at what we had just seen, all the drivers were standing around nonchalantly at the bottom. We congratulated and thanked them. The star driver was only 24 and has been doing it for five years. He seemed calm as you like, but I guess doing this constantly day in, day out, touring the country (they are from Delhi), like anything, it probably becomes a bit pedestrian after a while…