Asim Bando's KOLKATA BLOG

The 'Charak' festival in early Kolkata was observed mainly in the month of March-April and saw an amazing and quite natural subversion of social conventions. Low caste devotees of Lord Shiva performed this penance, when people swung from ropes with an iron hook embedded into their backs. In 1865, the practice of 'charak' (binding a person to a hook and suspending him from a high pole) was banned on grounds that it was a cruel practice. A week before the charak puja, men of the lower orders wore anklets around their necks, and the sacred thread, went dancing around grog shops, brothels, and courtyards of people's houses to the beating of drums. They went from house to house gathering sannyasis, ie, servants who would then undertake the ritual penances associated with this festival. In the evening, the children thronged to see the Jhula Sanyas when sadhus were swung over bales of hay set on fire. As the sky darkened, the city looked alto...