Fairs and Festivals of Haryana: Surajkund and Gita Jayanti

Haryana is a small state with a crowded fair calendar, because it holds three kinds of gathering at once: the crafts fair that the state itself built into an international event, the tirtha fairs of Kurukshetra and the Saraswati belt, and the village melas at the shrines of folk deities and Sufi saints. HSSC, HPSC and Haryana CET papers ask this chapter as fair, place, district and occasion, and the two names that come up most often are the Surajkund International Crafts Mela and Gita Jayanti at Kurukshetra.

The Surajkund International Crafts Mela

The Surajkund mela is held at Surajkund in Faridabad district, on the Delhi border, and it was started in 1987. It runs every year from 1 to 15 February, and it is organised by the Surajkund Mela Authority with Haryana Tourism and the Union Ministries of Tourism, Textiles, Culture and External Affairs. It was given the title of an international fair in 2013. Every edition has a theme state and one or more partner nations, whose crafts, food and performances fill a part of the grounds, and its fixed features are the chaupals where folk artists perform, the Natyashala stage and the Apna Ghar display of a traditional village home. The reservoir that gives the place its name is an amphitheatre-shaped tank attributed to the Tomar king Surajpal, which is why the fair is held there rather than at a city ground.

Gita Jayanti and the Kurukshetra fairs

Gita Jayanti is kept on the Ekadashi of the bright half of Margashirsha, the day called Mokshada Ekadashi, as the day the Bhagavad Gita is held to have been spoken. The state keeps it at Kurukshetra as the International Gita Mahotsav, run by the Kurukshetra Development Board, with the main events at Brahma Sarovar, a deep-daan of lamps on its steps in the evening, a Gita yagya, seminars and a crafts bazaar. Jyotisar, a few kilometres away, is the spot held to be where Krishna spoke the discourse to Arjuna, and Sannihit Sarovar is the second great tank of the town. Kurukshetra also fills on Somvati Amavasya and, above all, at a solar eclipse, when lakhs bathe at Brahma Sarovar. Pehowa, in the same district, is the Saraswati tirtha where pind-daan is offered for ancestors.

The big village and tirtha fairs

The Kapal Mochan fair at Bilaspur in Yamunanagar district is held on Kartik Purnima around three tanks, Kapal Mochan, Rin Mochan and Surya Kund, and it is a cattle fair as well as a bathing fair; a gurdwara there records a visit of Guru Gobind Singh. The Sheetla Mata fair, also called the Masani fair, is held at the Devi temple in Gurugram in Chaitra and again around Ashwin, and is the largest fair of that district. The Phalgu fair at Pharal in Kaithal district is kept at a pind-daan tirtha of the same family as Gaya. The Baba Mastnath fair is held at Asthal Bohar near Rohtak, the Agroha Dham fair in Hisar district gathers on Agrasen Jayanti, and Dhamtan Sahib in Jind district holds a Sikh fair. At Pinjore in Panchkula district the Yadavindra garden hosts a Mango Mela in July and a heritage festival.

The festivals of the Haryanvi year

Teej, kept on the Tritiya of the bright half of Shravana, is the women festival of swings and sweets and has been raised to a state festival in Haryana. Gugga Naumi, on the Navami of the dark half of Bhadrapada, honours the folk deity Gugga Pir, and his chhari or decorated staff is carried from village to village with songs. Sanjhi is kept by girls during Navratri, who shape the image of Sanjhi Devi in clay on a wall and take it to the water on the last day. Salono is the local name of Raksha Bandhan, and Lohri, Basant Panchami, Holi with its phag songs, Baisakhi and Gangaur complete the round. Haryana Day, on 1 November, marks the formation of the state in 1966 and is kept across the districts with cultural programmes.

What to notice about this calendar

Two features of the Haryana calendar are worth stating plainly for an exam. First, the state has made two of its fairs into branded annual events with fixed dates, the Surajkund mela in February and the Gita Mahotsav in Margashirsha, which is why their years, dates and venues are asked so often. Second, the oldest fairs of the state cluster along the Saraswati belt, at Kurukshetra, Pehowa, Pharal and Kapal Mochan, because that dried river course carried the tirthas named in the Mahabharata and the Puranas.