Bali Jatra in Cuttack: paper boats at dawn, then a week-long fair

The festival starts before sunrise. Families come down to Gadagadia Ghat, next to Barabati Fort, with boats made of coloured paper, dried banana bark and cork. Each carries a betel leaf and a small oil lamp, which is lit before the boat is set on the water. As the boats drift out, people sing ‘Aa ka ma boi’, a song about the four months that mattered to the merchants of old Kalinga, the ancient name for this coast.

The gesture copies the departure of the Sadhabas, Odia merchant mariners who sailed to Bali, Java, Sumatra, Borneo and Sri Lanka in ships called boitas. They left on Kartik Purnima because the wind then turned in their favour and filled their large cloth sails. The festival is a memory of a trade route, not of a deity.

Cuttack is the main gathering, but the boats go out across Odisha the same morning, on rivers, ponds, tanks and the sea shore. Paradip holds its own Kalinga Bali Jatra, started in 1992. In 2022 the Cuttack ghat set a Guinness World Record: more than 2,100 students from 22 schools folded over 22,000 paper boats in 35 minutes.

From the morning of the full moon the riverbank turns into a fairground that runs for about a week, traditionally until Prathamastami, the eighth day of the waning moon of Margashira in the Odia calendar. Its official site describes it as Odisha's largest open-air trade fair, visited by lakhs (hundreds of thousands) of people.

What fills it: rows of stalls and food, giant wheels and other rides, a ‘well of death’ (maut ka kuan) show, and an evening stage. Food is a large part of the visit. Look for Cuttack's dahibara aludum (lentil fritters in yogurt with a spicy potato curry), thunka puri and gupchup.

The main fairground is the lower ground on the bank beside the ghat; the upper ground by the fort has been used in some years and not in others. The Cuttack district administration announces the dates and the layout of the grounds in August or September, and the official site publishes the stall maps. The fair is busiest from late afternoon until late at night. When crowds were especially heavy, the administration has extended it by a day.

One night is enough for the dawn; two let you see an evening at the fair as well.

The fair draws lakhs of people each evening. The UK Foreign Office (FCDO) notes that stampedes have happened at large gatherings in India, including religious ones, and advises following the advice of local authorities.