India is a land of fairs. Almost every district has a fair. Some of them are religious fairs. Others are commercial fairs. Some of them are both. On the Kartik Purnima, it was a holiday. I went with some friends to see the Bateshwar Fair. It is very famous and people come to see it from far and wide. We went there in the morning.
When we reached the fair, we had to cross bridge over a part of the river. Then we reached the Mela ground. We saw a large number of donkeys, pigs, camels and horses in different parts of the fair ground. The donkeys were holding a braying competition. The pigs were grunting, the horses were neighing and camels were making a babbling sound. I liked the horses show best. The owners of the horses were riding and showing them to the buyers. Some of
them were very costly.
There was a great dust. Our clothes and hair became dusty with it. We looked like old men. We reached the shop market. Here the ground was well sprinkled with water. There was no dust at all. At first we took our refreshments in a fine sweet shop. Then we went round. The arrangements of shops were nice. The shops of one kind were at one place in rows. In the cloth market, I looked at attractive sarees and other clothes. We asked the price of many things though we did not want to buy them.
Then we won’t to the Jamuna and took bath there. There was a great crowd and the water had become very dirty. After bath we went to the temple of Shiva and rang the hanging bell. Many worshippers were standing for their turns. Many people were worshipping Lord Shiva.
We saw different types and large number of swings there. There was much squeaking and noise. The children liked them very much.
They loved going up and down in them. There was a circus show also. We went in on payment of one rupee each. There showed lions, tigers, elephants and other animals. They showed their amusing tricks. There were theatres and companies also. We took our food in a big shop. We had too much, though we did not like the food. It was after all a fair and everybody was making money. We went to see the shops again. This time we bought many things of daily use.
Now the evening was drawing near and we were tired. So we returned home on a tonga. It was really a good fair to watch.
