Chitra Vichitra Mela

The fair is at Gunbhakhari near Khedbrahma, on the Sabarmati, and is named for Chitravirya and Vichitravirya, the brothers of the Mahabharata, who by local tradition ended their lives here. It is kept in two halves and the order matters. On the night of the amas the women of the Bhil and Garasia families go to the river and weep for everyone who has died in the year, aloud and together. At daybreak that stops, and the fair begins - the dancing, the trading and the courting.

Almost nowhere else does a calendar put a public mourning and a fair on the same ground twelve hours apart. Both halves are the observance, and going for only the second is missing it.