Here is your short paragraph on Charak mela:
On the last day of Chaitra (usually in the month of April), the Charak Mela is held in Bengal in honour of Lord Shiva.
This is a great occasion for rural people, a great out pouring of village culture austere shows, loud hyms in glory of deity, jugglery, a giant wheel a merry-go-round etc. mark the fair. An wonderland of Shaivites.
This is in-fact an austere show in the annual Siva worship on the last day of the Bengali year. The participating devotees would pierce their tongue and other parts of their body and hand themselves from the top of a high pole, being tied to the spikes imbedded in their body. Mukundaram in his Canditmngal Kavya said “Jihva kdte van phore karaye carak” means they pierce their tongues, stab their bodies and perform.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
G.O. Trevelyan in his ‘Competition Wallah” published in 1866 had described the Charaka Mela. This is the hook swinging festival (Charak), which both fascinated and repelled the foreigners. So impressed was he with the processions the ceremonies and rituals that he felt as though he was transported to ancient Athens.
“If it had not been for the colour of the faces around,” he wrote, “I should have believed myself to be on the main road to Elensis in the full tide of one of the Dionysiac festivals. In Hoogly district of West-Bengal, Charaka Puja commences from the month of Phalgun in Tarakeshwar, a wellknown centre of Hindu pilgrimage.