The magazine of the photo-essay
November 2018 back issue
“A free, really high quality photo-essay magazine. Fabulous!”
Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film maker
by Rajib Singha
Jaydev Kenduli is a village in Birbhum district of West Bengal In India. It hosts an annual fair known as 'Baul fair' on the
auspicious occasion of Makar Sankranti. The villagei has long been considered the birthplace of the poet Jayadeva, who
composed Gita Govinda in Sanskrit.
The fair starts on the last day of the Bengali Calendar and commemorates the day on which Jayadeva is claimed to have
taken a bath at the Kadaambokhandi ghat of the Ajay river in Jaydev Kenduli. The fair, which is believed by some to have
started centuries ago, caters primarily to the requirements of village folk. Everything from cooking utensils to fishing nets
are sold in the fair that becomes of a melting pot of rustic people, numbering tens of thousands, from adjacent villages.
