Topic: Here In the West, "Going To A Stones Show" Means Something Else

[Pilsner Panther]

Thank goodness. I'll stick with the seltzer and the custard pies, myself.



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Sunday September 4, 08:55 PM

Madhya Pradesh's Stone-Throwing Festival Hurts 50
   
By Indo Asian News Service

Bhopal, Sep 4 (IANS) At least 50 people sustained injuries in the annual stone-throwing festival - the Gotmaar Mela - held here in Madhya Pradesh.

Every year, the festival is held in August or September in Chhindwada district of southern Madhya Pradesh, in which villagers of Saargaon and Pandhurhna form two groups and hurl stones at each other.

'A total of 10,000 people took part in the festival,' said a district official of Chhindwada.

The members of both the teams have to vie with each other to chop a tree on a Jamna rivulet, which separates the two villages. The member of the group who manages to chop the tree is declared the winner.

'We do not know when this festival started. It must be centuries old,' said Raghav Singh, a resident of Pandhurna.

'The district administration makes preparations every year to see that nobody sustains severe injuries. We also make arrangements for immediately treating the injured. We set up makeshift clinics in the close vicinity of the Jamna river,' said an administrative official of Chhindwada.

The district administration, in order to contain the number of injured in the festival, had introduced rubber balls instead of stones a couple of years back. But those who participate in the festival did not accept it, switching back to stones the very next year.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/050904/43/5zzue.html

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[Bruckman]

In New England, of course, we refer to this ritual as "The Lottery" (w/apologies to shirley Jackson).