Nevertheless, the mud festival at Marcela, Ponda, Goa, is a unique one, little known to the people beyond Ponda. Like all goan folk festivals and fests,the Chikal kalo is strongly linked to an element of Mother Nature, the mud . If you ask any elderly Marcelcar, when was the beginning of this celebration, you will get answers as varied as “ I do not know:” “ my grandparents used to play in the mud on this day”” probably 300 years back “ others state with wisdom. It is difficult to go back in time to ascertain the moment in Time, when the folk festivals began, as there is no written evidence about them beyond 300 years back.
The Chikal kalo festival has also another distinctive feature: The temple where it is celebrated is only one of its kind in the whole of India, as it is dedicated to the mother and the child:Devaki Krishna.The celebration is on the twelfth day of the month of Ashada of the Hindu calendar and this day happens to be in mid July. Heavens pour endless rain and the ground is so drenched and the mud so wet that it creates the appropriate conditions for this enjoyable rain celebration. On Ashadi Ekadashi, the singing of the bhajans begins at noon by lighting the lamp of the temple. The singing continues through the night and ends on the next day at 11 a.m. At this juncture, people from the vicinity enter the temple to dance and sing around the lamp that is lit and offer a prayer to Goddess Devaki. On the dot of noon, natives who were in the temple praying and dancing take a small amount of oil from the lamp and rub it on their arms with the belief that Devaki will protect them from all dangers.
The great moment has arrived. The group descends in a procession to the square in front of the temple, singing bhajans to the accompaniment of the mridang and tal , the two instruments which were so loved by Lord Kkrishna. The procession has a leader and his role is important in the open area of the temple where children, young and old play with mud. They pick up handfuls of mud and slosh, and splatter and throw it on each other believing that Lord Krishna is among them The entire crowd in the square is fully covered with the sticky brown stuff from head to toe and unrecognizable. Then, the leader takes charge of the games. These games played by Lord Krishna at Mathura are described in the mythical texts and have necessarily to be played at Marcela. There are about 8 games, which are played to the beat of two musical instruments, the favorites of Lord Krishna.
The most interesting game is the Chakr or the wheel. Youngsters lie on the ground and make a formation resembling a wheel by touching their feet. The leader gives the command to start the game so the human wheel of youngsters starts to rotate, the wet mud below them facilitating their rotating movement. Afterwards, the other games follow like the blind man’s bluff, a mock wrestling exhibition, a tug of war, etc. Senior citizens generally do not participate in these exhaustive physical games but they get pleasure by playing with mud and recalling their good old days.
The mud at the temple of Devaki Krishna has curative effects for some skin diseases. Those who have been cured return to fulfill their promise. In addition, childless women, place the image of Krihna in the layers of their sari and if she gets a child, she comes back to fulfill her pledge. . Interestingly, the vows consist in preparing a special sweet, which resembles a paratha or a puran poli stuffed with jaggery and scrapped coconut. The distribution of these sweets is also another out of the ordinary way: The person stands on a stone platform near the temple and flings the sweets to the crowd below. Some of the sweets fall in the muddy ground and others are skillfully caught and enjoyed by the crowd.
(Inputs by Vinayak Khedekar)
