Here is your short paragraph on Kullu Mela:

During Dussehra, in the Kulu valley commences the famous Kulu Mela. Now, it is the time for the deities to forsake their temples and adore the fields amidst the sun.

Each village has its god’s and are taken out in a noisy procession by musicians and minstrels from their various high perches in the hills to the fields of Kulu below. There they shall be one of the main attractions of the week long fair.

On the seventh day, their final processions marks the end of the fair as well. A plethora of stalls, a mammoth assemblage and the merry-making marks the Kulu affair. A buffalo is sacrificed in front of the jostling crowd. At the end of the fair, a long ascent of the god begins to reign over their particular shrine till the next Kulu fair in the month of September/October.

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An unique feature of the Kullu’s Dushehra fair is that the festival begins on the tenth day of the waxing moon, i.e., on the Vijay Dashami day and lasts for seven days. There is no enactment of Rama story. On the first day of the fair, the idol of Raghunathji saddled in a gaily attired chariot and attended by numerous village gods, mounted in colourful palanquins, is tugged from its fixed place to Dhalpur Maidan to another spot across the ground by pulling big ropes.

The tugging of chariot is regarded sacred by the local people. Everyone gives a hand in pulling the chariot out. This forms a huge procession. All the gods of the valley visit Kullu on Dussehra in order to pay their homage to Raghunathji.

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On the following days, both in the mornings and in the evenings, the gods are invoked and taken out in procession. The people remain busy buying, selling, singing and dancing during these seven days of the fair which concludes with the burning of Lanka.

The chariot of Raghunathji is taken to the bank of river Beas on the last day of the festival, where a pile of wood and grass is set on fire. This symbolises the burning of Lanka. The last part constitutes some sacrificial ceremo­nies. At the end of the fair, the chariot is brought back to its original place and the idol of Raghunathji is taken to its temple at Sultanpur.

The attendant gods also disperse for their respective destinations. The famous idol of Raghunathji which commemorates Ram Chandra, was brought from Ayodhya in July 1651 by one Damodar Das and was installed at Kullu.

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