গাজন ও কলকাতার লোককথা | Gajan Festival and the Folktales in Kolkata

Abstract

Gajan is well-known festival prevalent in rural Bengal. Former discussions have been focused on villages and songs, rather than cities and rituals themselves. This study deals with the folktales of a ritual in Kolkata in terms of cultural anthropology. Bodily perforations of the festival used to be condemned as 'cruel and barbarous custom' in colonial Kolkata. In this essay a folktale collected in the southern part of Kolkata is interpreted as the product of both British intervention and contempt inflicted upon the ritual by native elites.