A folk Shaiva festival closing the Bengali year, historically marked by extreme acts of austerity — fire-walking and devotees swung from a spinning pole — offered as penance to burn away the old year before the new one begins. Many of these practices have been moderated into symbolic form in recent generations; the spirit of settling one year's account, in the body as much as the ledger, remains.
पश्चिम बंगाल, ओडिशा
The festival is dedicated to Shiva in his fierce, ascetic aspect, and historically ran alongside Gajan, a related set of Shaiva folk rites observed across rural Bengal through the same closing days of Chaitra.
Modern observance has shifted heavily toward symbolic processions and folk theater rather than the physical austerities once associated with the day, particularly in urban areas.