In the Name of Kali

I have received an invitation to revisit Ghatbagar. I had been to this quaint, little village in Uttaranachal in December last to attend a fair dedicated to Goddess Kali. The tour was hectic, but the experience astounding. In fact, it was so shocking that I decided not to visit Ghatbagar again. At least not during the fair.

Nestled in the Kumaon hills, Ghatbagar is about 100 kilometres uphill from Ramnagar, well-known for the Corbett National Park. The narrow, steep road passes through Moulikhel, Marchula and Dodial. At each bend, the snow-capped peaks of Himalaya appear with all their grandeur and beauty. They seem so near that you can almost touch them.

I travelled with an office colleague who hails from Ghatbagar. We spent the night at his sister’s house at Shashikhal, some 20 kilometres away, and reached Ghatbagar in the morning. The Kalinka Devi temple, where the fair takes place every two years, is nine kilometres from there. The fair is famous for animal sacrifice, and attracts more than 50,000 people from surrounding villages. Though the fair starts only in the afternoon, we could already see a serpentine queue of people crossing the Lakhra Ghati river to reach the fair spot on time.

We joined them at 2 pm…crossing the shallow Lakhra river, leaving the Kulandeshwar Shiva temple on the right, rubbing shoulders with people pulling goats, sheep and buffalos on an uphill trek. Finally, as we approached the hill-top temple of the Goddess Kali (Kailnka Mandir, as people from the local Badheri tribe call it), the scene became clear. This was not a fair for merry-making, but one for sacrifice. Those who prayed to Goddess Kali two years ago, and their wish had been fulfilled, have now come back with an animal for sacrifice. The area around the small temple was packed with people, mostly women, and a special puja was going on in a walled, cordoned-off place. This was the Yagna (homage) for the sacrifice of the main sacred buffalo. On a pedestal nearby were kept the local deities and a long mast stood upright with a white flag fluttering on top. Hundreds of goats, sheep and buffalos were either tied to the stumps of trees on the slope, or were grazing in the open. As soon as the sacred buffalo gets sacrificed, the white flag on the mast would be lowered, and that would be the signal for the beginning of the mass slaughter, I was told. Meanwhile, the tension was palpable, and the silence ominous.

The death cry of the sacred buffalo came at around 5 pm, and was immediately drowned with the shout of “Kalinka Devi ki Jai’ (Hail Kalinka Devi) from everyone present there. Long swords came out, and the mass slaughtering began. Very few were professionals, most people were striking the bleeding animals on their neck, back or heads, somehow to kill them. For the sheep and goats, people severed their heads and legs to offer them to the temple, and carried the rest of the torso back home for a ceremonial feast. The buffalos were left dying, their throats slit or heads chopped off. Wild boars and vultures would clean them off over the next few days. The official figure of dead animals was 300 goats and sheep, and 200 buffalos. But according to our count, it was at least five times more than that. And it was all over in just half an hour.

Then, it was time to get back to Ghatbagar. A crimson sun, paler than the blood lying all around, was setting on the horizon. Some people had lighted fire on the river bank to roast the sacrificial meat, and whiffs of smoke were bellowing above the pine trees. The chill was in the air. We would drive down to Delhi next morning.